Aerospatiale, french aircraft conceptor and manufacturer, has progressed with the Support of Airbus Industry, to evaluate a promise method to test repair processing.
Previous Aerospatiale developments and others (1) (2) have shown that Shearography method is particularly stuitable for the inspection of honeycomb sandwhich and monolithic composite structures. It is superior to conventional procedures, regards to the detectable fault size and the speed of the test. Coordination between the maintenance engeenering department and nondestructive specialist has leeded to select concerned structures towards there is an interest to avoid part replacement. The selection of cases to be tested, was taking account of the representativity of the structure type: curved, monolithic, sandwich type, composite material ..
The first tests were done on Radom Ailevon and Belly fairing composites structures type.
The objective were to evaluate the detectability and faisability in maintenance conditions of that method. Different stressing methods were used to evaluate which could be used and gives good results like - vacuum, thermal and vibration - ultrasound. And accessibilty to the inspection area has orientated the technic selected.
To day we can say that the Shearographic method is able to inspect the composite material repear integrity
References:
1.John Epson II. LEVI, Laser Shearography for rapid nondestructive inspection, MaterialsWorld, 09 96 p521
2.Ettemeyer A., Honlet M.,Nondestructive testing with laser shearography, 6 ECNDT, Nice 1994
Abstract Source:
Book of Abstracts, 7th European Conference on Non-Destructive Testing, 26-29 May 1998, ISBN: 87-986898-0-00
Full-Text Source:
Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Non-Destructive Testing, 26-29 May 1998, ISBN:
Publication Contact:
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