Exploring an efficient non-destructive approach to characterize damage behavior and crack propagation of highly-filled wood-plastic composites during three-point bending test

To evaluate non-destructive methods for the characterization of highly-filled wood-plastic composites (WPCs), current work investigates the damage and crack propagation of highly-filled WPCs during three-point bending using digital image correlation (DIC), acoustic emission (AE), and finite element method (FEM). Herein, DIC can assess crack propagation, whereas FEM cannot provide insights into the late fracture process. Furthermore, AE shows that the WPCs crack propagation rate is closely related to the AE signal. Especially it is highly consistent with the slope changes of the strain-cumulative ringing count curve, indicating that AE can accurately evaluate the damage and crack propagation evolution within a material.