dc.description.abstract | The immensely fast-growing wood plastic composite (WPC) sector presents a wide range of opportunity for utilizing waste wood, wood fiber and plastics. This recycled material has high potential ability to reduce the plastic waste which eventually ends up in incinerated, landfills or in the ocean, causing a great environmental impact.
As due to its versatility increased physical and mechanical properties and manufacturing flexibility, it can be used from construction material (both structural and non-structural) to even household applications. But due to the materials nature, harsh and unpredictable operational conditions at the place of the service it can be vulnerable to degradation and failure within its operational period. Therefore, it is important to keep a record of the condition of the WPC materials during its service period.
In this thesis, we explore an unconventional non-contact non-destructive evaluation technique (NDT) to indirectly and rapidly evaluate structural degradation of WPC panels due to aging | |