Abstract
Purpose
Defects can be caused by a number of factors, such as maintenance damage, ground handling and foreign objects thrown up from runways during an in-service use of composite aerospace structures. Sandwich structures are capable of absorbing large amounts of energy under impact loads, resulting in high structural crashworthiness. This situation is one of the many reasons why sandwich structures are extensively used in many aerospace applications nowadays. Their non-destructive inspection is often more complex. Hence, the choice of a suitable non-destructive testing (NDT) method can play a key role in successful damage detection. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A comparison of detection capabilities of selected C-scan NDT methods applicable for inspections of sandwich structures was performed using water-squirt, air-coupled and pitch-catch (PC) ultrasonic techniques, supplemented by laser shearography (LS).
Findings
Test results showed that the water-squirt and PC techniques are the most suitable methods for core damage evaluation. Meanwhile, the air-coupled method showed lower sensitivity for the detection of several artificial defects and impact damage in honeycomb sandwiches when unfocussed transducers were used. LS can detect most of the defects in the panels, but it has lower sensitivity and resolution for honeycomb core-type sandwiches.
Originality/value
This study quantitatively compared the damage size indication capabilities of sandwich structures by using various NDT techniques. Results of the realised tests can be used for successful selection of a suitable NDT method. Combinations of the presented methods revealed most defects.
Subject
Mechanical Engineering,Mechanics of Materials,Civil and Structural Engineering
Reference29 articles.
1. Inspection of composites – current status and challenges,2006
2. Acoustic detection of invisible damage in aircraft composite panels;Applied Acoustics,2009
3. Bandicoot – a novel approach to using a pitch-catch acoustic probe for field non-destructive testing;Acoustics Australia,2002
4. Digital Shearography and vibration excitation for NDT of aircraft components;AIP Conference Proceedings,2014
Cited by
13 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献