NDTnet 1998 Aug, Vol.3 No.8

Full-Text - Abstract

A large number of developers and end-users from the aeronautical industry have been involved in three consecutive projects funded by the European Union in the fields of Industrial and Materials Technologies (Brite/ Euram). These research projects have been targeted towards solving today's ageing aircraft inspection problems, reducing production cost by improving inspection procedures and considering the in-service inspection problems expected to arise in the near future. Following a first project (BE 5145) entitled « Improving the reliability, quality and cost-effectiveness of the inspection of safety critical structures », we present an overview of the developments achieved and of the results obtained in the second NDT project (BE925879) called « NDT- NDE for Maintenance of Structural Parts » and of the work carried out in a current project (BE95-1778) « Cost Reduction by Advanced Non-destructive Inspection of Aeronautical Structures - CANDIA ».

The developments achieved in project BE 5879 should improve the reliability and speed of infield inspections of defects and damages in composite materials, they should improve the application of ultrasonic NDT inspection covering the following aspects: coupling techniques - scanning techniques - signal analysis methods - data processing techniques, and should improve corrosion depth measurement and fatigue crack sizing. For this purpose application of optical non contact NDT methods was studied, and in particular an improved real time phase stepped shearographic system has been developed. Loading systems were developed and implemented. Study of an air coupled method for ultrasonic inspection taking advantage of new composite transducers was undertaken. An Electronic Phase Array Transducer was investigated to improve defect characterization. Signal analysis methods were carried out and data compression and storage techniques were investigated. Eddy current testing methods, instrumentation, signal and image processing softwares were developed and equipment characterization was undertaken in parallel to support the developments and for a prenormative aspect. XY mechanical scanners were investigated, selected and developed in association with artificial intelligence.

The current project can partly be considered as exploitation of the results of the second project, new subjects have been developed such as laser ultrasonics, high speed thermography, lamb wave applications of air-coupled ultrasounds for reducing inspection cost, and expert systems to improve sensitivity, objectivity and reliability. For the latter subject, technology transfer from the finalized RACE project TRAPPIST as well as project RADICAD is investigated.

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:

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