In this paper we present the comparison of diagnostic NDT (non-destructive testing) techniques based on infrared thermography for the detection of water in composite materials used in aviation. There are different sources for thermal stimulation used in these methods. Research was performed both on a specially prepared test-sample and on a real aerospace component. The obtained results indicate the potential of IR thermography methods for the detection of water in aerospace components which is important because its presence even in small quantities may cause defects in these elements.

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This work presents the modern approach to the detection of various types of defects in composite structures used in aerospace. In such structures, including glass reinforced plastics and carbon reinforced plastics, different failure modes could occur at a manufacturing stage and during service life. Defects are connected with inadequate technology, poor workmanship, cycling fatigue loads, impact damage and environmental conditions. The main types of defects are delaminations, disbonds, foreign object inclusions and porosity. To detect such defects, several non destructive evaluation techniques can be applied, merely to mention ultrasonic, low frequency acoustics, infrared thermography and shearography. The use of multimode non destructive evaluation techniques enables characterization of defects which cannot be detected by using single non destructive evaluation methods. This paper demonstrates the necessity of using non destructive evaluation methods for the implementation of quality control and maintenance procedures while servicing aerospace composite elements.

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The idea of thermal tomography is slicing a work piece for some in-depth layers which exhibit the distribution of thermal properties in materials by the analogy with X-ray tomography. Thermal tomography is based on the analysis of the surface temperature evolution which follows thermal stimulation of test samples. In this paper, some experimental results of applying the dynamic thermal tomography algorithm to a carbon fibre reinforced plastic sample are presented. The efficiency of few data processing methods is discussed.