The results of using early damage diagnostics technique (developed in the Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMASH RAN) for detecting the latent damage of an aviation panel made of composite material upon bench tensile tests are presented. We have assessed the capabilities of the developed technique and software regarding damage detection at the early stage of panel loading in conditions of elastic strain of the material using brittle strain-sensitive coating and simultaneous crack detection in the coating with a high-speed video camera “Video-print” and acoustic emission system “A-Line 32D.” When revealing a subsurface defect (a notch of the middle stringer) of the aviation panel, the general concept of damage detection at the early stage of loading in conditions of elastic behavior of the material was also tested in the course of the experiment, as well as the software specially developed for cluster analysis and classification of detected location pulses along with the equipment and software for simultaneous recording of video data flows and arrays of acoustic emission (AE) data. Synchronous recording of video images and AE pulses ensured precise control of the cracking process in the brittle strain-sensitive coating (tensocoating)at all stages of the experiment, whereas the use of structural-phenomenological approach kept track of the main trends in damage accumulation at different structural levels and identify the sources of their origin when classifying recorded AE data arrays. The combined use of oxide tensocoatings and high-speed video recording synchronized with the AE control system, provide the possibility of definite determination of the subsurface defect, reveal the maximum principal strains in the area of crack formation, quantify them and identify the main sources of AE signals upon monitoring the state of the aviation panel under loading P = 90 kN, which is about 12% of the critical load.
