| ABSTRACT: | ADVANCED INSPECTION OF HELICOPTER STRUCTURES
R. Krupka, T. Walz, and A. Ettemeyer
Dantec - Ettemeyer Gmbh, Elchingen, Germany
Shearography has been validated as fast and reliable inspection technique for aerospace components.
Especially in helicopter inspection, this technique has proven its ability for cost efficient solutions in
production and maintenance.The applications basically range from serial inspection in the production line to
field inspection in assembly and to applications in the maintenance and repair area. In all applications, the
main advantages of shearography, as very fast and full field inspection and high sensitivity even on very
complex composite materials have led to the decision for laser shearography as inspection tool.
In this paper, we present some recent highlights of industrial shearography inspection for helicopter
components.
As example, a new and improved concept for field inspection of composite material was developed using a
portable vacuum hood including a compact shearography camera. The vacuum hood is sealed by a new
flexible seal to the component to be inspected. The innovative seal design does not require space outside the
field of view, enabling the system to measure very close to the edge of components. Other features are
improved visibility and sensitivity by real time phase measurement and elaborated post processing of the
measured data.
In order to improve the inspection quality and to be able to inspect larger areas at a time, new shearography
systems have been equipped with high resolution Megapixel cameras. In combination with phase shifting
techniques this gives improved results compared to conventional applications.
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