The paper presents a summary of the organization of maintenance activities where it involves nondestructive testing, at both VARIG Airlines aircraft maintenance centers: Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre. It also presents some uses of nondestructive testing in aircraft maintenance, mainly the less usual in other industry fields. Examples of five traditional nondestructive testing methods used at VARIG will be broached. Fluorescent liquid penetrant is used at an inspection line for large and small parts, placed in rotating trays.High frequency eddy current is used in the search for surface cracks in aircraft structures: a simple, portable, cheap and fast method, with high sensitivity. Rotating probe equipment for rivet hole inspection is emphasized. Low frequency eddy current is used in sub-surface inspection with specific probes and reference standards. Examples are the corrosion loss in two aluminum sheets interface, the crack detection at the second sheet of a riveted joint and the detection fiberglass repairs in painted metallic surfaces.
Ultrasonic test using pulse-echo, resonance and transparency techniques find uses such as detection of cracks at the opposite face of fittings, crack running out of rivet holes, delamination in bonded metallic joints or in carbon laminate with honeycomb parts, this one using a water yoke. 200 kV X-ray equipment is used for component and aircraft inspection where disassembly is not applicable. Liquid crystal thermography is also broached used for water detection in honeycomb parts in a fast and cheap way.
