Title: SARA 10: A SYSTEM FOR HIGH SPEED AUTOMATIC NDE OF LARGE COMPOSITE PARTS

Abstract:
Some basic concepts to be considered in the design of an automatic ultrasonic testing system for Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) of composite structural parts in manufacturing are summarized and discussed, in particular those affecting the quality of the information obtained from the test and its ability to be integrated in the manufacturing process information flow.

Large structural composite parts will be required for future commercial aircrafts and high performance in productivity and test reliability shall be attained at low cost.

The SARA 10 system is described as a suitable solution to these goals. It features multichannel pulse-echo and through transmission, water-jet. Its robotics features up to 20 m usable stroke in length by 4.5 m in heigh. Transverse, secondary and rotary axes (up to 12 motors are simultaneously interpolated), make the system able to follow complex geometries.

To programm the scanning of complex parts, the system offers an outstanding facility of a digital reading of the surface by means of an automatic laser device. This avoids the problems caused by possible deviation (spring-back) from the nominal geometry read from CAD file. The electronics to transmit and receive ultrasonic pulses has been developed through a research project (TEMPUS-SENDAS) focussing on the testing speed and reliability. The digital stage is based on a parallel architecture where a chain of specialized Processing Modules (Pms) performs, by hardware and concurrently, the required signal processing. The modular concept makes easy to configure a particular application and is open to accept future improvements in signal processing technology. Other system from the SARA series are described

Source: Proceedings of the 'NDE applied to Process Control of Composite Fabrication' - Conference, 1-2 Oct 1996 St. Louis, Missouri. Publisher and Organizer: Nondestructive Testing Information Analysis Center (NTIAC) Texas Research Institute Austin, Inc. Austin, Texas [http://www.ntiac.com] [Buying the Proceedings]