Non-destructive inspection apparatus and method for toughened composite materials

A non-destructive composite material inspection apparatus, the surface layer of composite material including a plurality of fibers having a fiber direction and a plurality of toughened particles distributed on the surface, comprising:

• a light module generating an unpolarized light ray;
• an adjustment assembly coupled to the light module for adjusting an incident angle and an incident direction of the light ray relative to the surface of the composite material, the incident angle is the Brewster's angle;
• and
• a stereoscopic microcamera module capturing a reflection light from the inspection area and outputting an image;
• wherein when a polarization orientation of the reflection light and the fiber direction are parallel, the image is a bright field image for analyzing the fiber direction and toughened particle distribution whereas when the polarization orientation of the reflection light and the fiber direction are orthogonal, the image is a dark field image for analyzing the toughened particle distribution and predicting the toughness of the composite material.

A method of non-destructive composite material inspection, the surface layer of composite material including a plurality of fibers having a fiber direction and a plurality of toughened particles distributed on the fibers, comprising:

• providing a first light module for generating a polarized first light ray, wherein the first light ray projects to a inspection area of the composite material in an incident angle and an incident direction;
• providing a stereoscopic microcamera module for capturing a reflection light from the inspection area and outputting an image;
• adjusting the polarization orientation, incident angle or incident direction of the first light ray until the stereoscopic microcamera module outputting a bright or a dark field image;
• and
• analyzing the bright or the dark field image for obtaining the fiber direction or the distribution properties of toughened particles.