Pulse thermography is a global method which can replace radiography or ultrasonic inspection for big composite parts with skin in CFRP thinner than 3 mm. This method can detect defects bigger than 10 mm which is most of the time enough regarding the rejection criteria used in aircraft maintenance composite (classically around an half inch size). To increase the detectability, phase thermography like lockin of pulse phase thermography should be the next keeping always in mind the portability of the method. As always in NDT, a new technique must be statistically validated in the near future by use of POD (Probability Of Detection) and compared with radiography and ultrasonic C-Scan of the parts. The idea is to characterize the defect detected with 90 % of POD following the methodology defined in Working Group of RTO AVT051. The whole fleet of Belgian F-16 and Agusta helicopters will be inspected next year with this technique for composite parts in order to detect defects and to characterize them in accordance with the manufacturer's rejection criteria. For the NDT technicians of the industry, it is also important to establish a reference training Handbook for level 1, 2 and 3 and to certify people into thermography. The used samples and the rejected flying parts are collected for training and examination at our certification centre of the Belgian National Aerospace NDT Board to be able to certify people following NAS410 or EN4179 which does not for the moment recognize thermography but probably will be the case in the near future.
Development of a new NDT method using thermography for composite inspection on aircraft with portable military thermal imager
Entwicklung einer neuen ZfP-Methode zur Untersuchung von Verbundwerkstoffen in der Luftfahrt unter Einsatz der Thermographie mit transportablen militärischen Temperatur-Abbildungssystemen
2006
23 Seiten, 27 Bilder, 5 Tabellen, 10 Quellen
Conference paper
Storage medium
English
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