Thermoplastic composites are regarded as a potential alternative to their thermoset counterparts in aircraft industries owing to their cost-effective manufacturing process and weldability. However, one of the most significant limitations of the currently used evaluation methods for the welded joints is that they are mostly destructive, which makes the loss of information on the initial features of the welding interface. In this study, the interfacial morphology and damage evolution of ultrasonic welded GF/PPS thermoplastic composite joints were accurately characterized by using in-situ micro-CT technique. The morphology of the weldline was demonstrated by the evolution of void defects, fibre architecture and resin contents of specimens created using different sonotrode travels. Based on that, the damage evolution scenario of the specimens welded at 40% and 100% travels was successively analysed via in-situ micro-CT analysis. In the final part, the newly proposed technique was comparatively discussed with the traditional characterization methods.

热塑性复合材料由于其具有成本效益的制造工艺和可焊性，被认为是飞机工业中热固性复合材料的潜在替代品。然而，目前使用的焊接接头评估方法的最大局限性之一是它们大多具有破坏性，这使得焊接界面初始特征的信息丢失。在这项研究中，超声焊接 GF/PPS 热塑性复合材料接头的界面形态和损伤演化通过使用原位显微 CT 技术准确表征。熔接线的形态通过空洞缺陷的演变、纤维结构和使用不同超声波发生器行程创建的试样的树脂含量来证明。基于此，通过原位显微 CT 分析，依次分析了在 40% 和 100% 行程下焊接的试样的损伤演化场景。在最后一部分，将新提出的技术与传统的表征方法进行了比较讨论。