This paper discusses a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique for the detection of damage in composite aircraft structures following high energy wide area blunt impact (HEWABI) from ground service equipment (GSE), such as heavy cargo loaders and other heavy equipment. The test structures typically include skin, co-cured stringers, and C-frames that are bolt-connected onto the skin with shear ties. The inspection exploits the waveguide geometry of these structures by utilizing ultrasonic guided waves and a line scan approach. Both a contact prototype and a non-contact prototype were developed and tested on realistic test panels subjected to impact in the laboratory. The results are presented in terms of receiver operating characteristic curves that show excellent probability of detection with low false alarm rates for defects located in the panel skin and stringers.
Assessing the health of aerospace structures and understanding the underlying mechanics that govern composite strength constitute a main focus of research in the area of aerospace design and airworthiness certification. Impact damage is one of the major threats to composite aerospace structures for its frequency of occurrence, complexity and minimum external visibility. While non-destructive evaluation (NDE) provides a variety of solutions to inspect the subsurface and internal components of structures non-invasively, a gap exists between the mechanics of damage formation, growth and tolerance, and the inspectability of the structure. This study is focused on the quantitative correlation between impact damage mechanics and ultrasonic NDE inspections, where damage severity, mode interaction and progression are identified in real-scale composite panels of complex geometry, representative of commercial aircraft, impacted to reproduce different damage types at the skin-to-stringer interface and the stringer cap. High resolution X-ray CT scanning and conventional ultrasonic scanning (UT) have been used to map the damage state and identify relevant impact damage features. Ultrasonic guided wave (UGW) scanning was then employed as a rapid in-situ inspection technique to not only detect damage but also provide quantitative information about damage severity and mode. The correlation of multi-resolution multi-dimensional NDE data promises new insights on damage studies and solutions to damage detection and prognosis through viable NDE inspections.
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