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Emerging NDE Technology for

Aging Aircraft – Large Area Scanning


To Small High Resolution Systems
Maintenance Planning Tools

David G. Moore 505.844.7095


Dennis P. Roach 505.844.6078
Sandia National Laboratories
Federal Aviation Administration
Airworthiness Assurance NDI Validation Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed-Martin
Company, for the United States Dept. of Energy under Contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.
FAA Airworthiness Assurance NDI
Validation Center

• Initiated in 1988 under


the Aviation Safety Act
• Provides a mechanism
to develop, evaluate,
and assess new
inspection
technologies
• Partnerships with
industry, academia,
and government

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


What We Do
• Aid in the development of new maintenance inspection
techniques, validate improved structural repairs and
advanced aircraft designs
• Perform inspection reliability studies
• Provide our customers with comprehensive,
independent, and qualitative evaluations of new and
enhanced inspection, maintenance, and repair
techniques
• Facilitate the transfer of effective technologies into the
aviation industry and develop inspection methods on a
non-competitive basis

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


What We Deliver (Information)
Validation, technology transfer, and deployment
Information for inspection improvement (SBs, ADs,
alternate-means-of-compliance requests, procedures)
Workshops, meetings, projects to promote technology transfer

Information to improve industry maintenance practices by


conducting reliability studies

Support development of new inspection technologies

Ongoing comparisons of conventional & emerging technology

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Validation Experiments
A series of focused experiments that quantitatively & qualitatively
evaluate NDI techniques through the use of blind testing & specific
protocols to arrive at uniform comprehensive assessments.

Consider all factors that affect reliability including inspector, equipment,


procedures, and environment – accuracy, sensitivity, repeatability,
human factors, versatility, portability, scan rate, cost.

• Disbond Inspection between lap joints


• Corrosion Detection in thin and thick, Multi-Layered Joints
• Surface Crack Detection (lap joints)
• Interlayer Crack Detection (lap joints)
• Widespread Fatigue Damage – 2nd layer cracks in WFD scenario
• Corrosion Detection in Aircraft Joints
• Composite Honeycomb Flaw Detection
• Crack Detection Under-Raised Head Fasteners (1st/2nd layer; Rotorcraft)

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Large Area Inspections

• Disbond Inspection Infrared Techniques


• Corrosion Detection Scanners (UT, ET)
• Crack Detection Scanner (UT, ET)
subsurface and first layer
• Composite Repair and Inspection new
equipment and inspection techniques

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Fuselage Disbond Inspection Procedure
Using Thermography
Disbonds can be precursors to crack initiation

• Boeing Service Bulletin 747- 53A2409 - find disbonds between 1st


and 2nd layer
• Can be used to detect 1” x 1” disbonds under 0.10” of skin or less
• Approved in Boeing NDT manuals as a general procedure for all
model aircraft

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


IR Thermography
THER MAL W A VE IM AGING SYSTEM

IN FR AR ED
CAMERA

• Flash lam ps heat the HAND-HELD SHRO UD ,


CO N TAINING
TW O FLASH LA M PS

inspection surface
LAPTO P
C O M PU TER

• Infrared cam era follows EXTENSIO N


C A R D-C AG E
W ITH IM AG E

the surface cooling PR O CESSO R

FLASHLAM P
CONTRO LLER

• Com puter & im age


processor m ake qualitative FLASHLAM P
POW ER SUPPLY

and quantitative im ages


and plots of the subsurface H A N DC A RT

structure

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


B747 Experiments

Ultrasonic Inspection Thermography Inspection

Bonded Doubler Disbonded Doubler Disbonded/Bonded


Doubler
FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center
Corrosion Detection System I

2120 2100 2080 2060 2040 2020


11
J - 5% MATERIAL LOSS I - 5% MATERIAL LOSS

G - 8% MATERIAL LOSS
MATERIAL LOSS INDICATIONS 12

H - 10% MATERIAL LOSS 13


FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center
Corrosion Detection System II
input current i(t)

Coil Current
Hz(air)

Magnetic Field
Hz(specimen)

time t ∆Hz(defect) time t

R
i(t) Hz(t) Hz =Hz(specimen) - Hz(air)

Ferrite cup-core Hall effect probe

Crack at Fastener

Pulsed (Transient) Eddy Current (PEC) applies a broad-


band pulse to a coil and generates a pulse magnetic field.
• Sensor watches decay of the reflected field
• Range of interrogating frequencies to cover surface to deep flaws
• Monitor response by time slice depending on inspection area

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Corrosion Detection with Pulsed EC
Trecscan System
Minimum Detectable Metal Loss 100
4
Metal Loss (m m)
DDefect
efect
DDepth
epth
0.4
10 (inches)
(mm )

0.060
1.5
(inches)

30.120
Minim um D etectable

0.041 40.160
4.5
0.180
0.240
5.5
70.280
0.004
0.1 80.320
0.380
9.5
11
0.440
0.01
0.0004
00 5
0.2 10
0.4 15
0.6 20
0.8 25
1.0 30
1.2
D efect DDiameter
Defect iameter (m(inches)
m)

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Corrosion Detection- System III
• Well developed system
fielded for Air Force
applications
• Uses commercial
ultrasonic transducer
• ACES coupling system is
truly dripless
• Accommodates raised
fasteners and surface
distortions
• Durable and accurate X-Y
Scanner

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Corrosion Detection
• Most of the techniques considered have no
problem detecting 14% corrosion in .04 to .1
inch thick aluminum panels.
• Two ultrasound techniques have estimated
90% detection rates at approximately the 3%
corrosion level.
• One eddy-current automated dual frequency
technique has an estimated 90% detection
rate at approximately the 2% corrosion level.
• System II not included in this study.

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Crack Detection 1st and 2nd Layer
• Fatigue crack specimens with comparison to industry
baseline for conventional techniques deployed at airlines
• Small cracks under fastener heads (0.050”) were stressed
• Improvements accompanied by increased training for
optimized signal interpretation

Rivet Check

MOI
FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center
Magneto Optic
Imager Device
• Magneto-optic sensor images the
perturbations in the magnetic field on a video
display
• MOI 308 (1.5-200kHz) with 303 and 307
imager; rotating MOI (circular mag. field)
• Applications corrosion, surface and subsurface Standard MOI
fatigue crack detections (transport to GA High Power
categories) in commercial and military
• Turbo MOI (prototype) - higher power and 0.200” 2nd layer crack
better eddy-current excitation for improved
depth of penetration

Turbo MOI
High Power (2X Standard)

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Rivet Check

• EC distribution based on Self


Nulling Probe (NASA) Rivet Head
• Eliminates signal variations
associated with probe
deployment & rivet Airframe
Skin
misalignment – missed cracks Fatigue Crack

• Centering display (constant


voltage) used to optimize probe
position

Probe
Positioning

Unflawed and Flawed Rivet Signals


FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center
Interlayer Crack Detection with
JENTEK MWM GridStation

MWM-Array
Probe

• Reliability of conformable probe system to detect cracks around


fasteners of 3rd layer
• POD improvements over existing sliding probe procedures, with low
false call rates. (0.9 PoD = .125” vs. 0.20+” for conventional NDI)

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


RFEC Technique for Flat Geometries

RFEC Probe

Drive Coil Direct Coupling Path Pickup Coil

Indirect Coupling Path


• The RFEC probe is designed to focus on the indirect coupling path, so
that the signal measured by the pickup coil carries the information of the
whole wall-thickness.
• Deeper penetration in detection deep flaws; higher S/N than LFEC
• Higher sensitivity and resolution to small defects
• Minimal signal interpretation is needed

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Bottom of
probe
No crack showing two
coils

Rotation Head

Rotation Guide
0.050” crack

Probe Carriage

Test Panel
Red = 2nd layer; Blue = 1st layer

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Composite
Inspection
Validation of Ultrasonic Inspections
Six Ply Boron-Epoxy Test Specimen with
Engineered Flaws
Embedded Disbond and Delamination Flaws

6 PLY 72 ply
LAMINATE
composite
laminate
Transducer in Weeper
Water Column Housing

Gimbal Rotates About


X and Y Axis
Water Supply

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Advanced Systems for Composite
Inspection
Shearography

SAM System

MAUS
System Thermography

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Shearography (LTI) Image Thermography
(TWI) Image

SAM Image

MAUS Image

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


New Inspection
Technologies

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


RD Tech Array Eddy Current
Hidden Corrosion Detection

• POD curves indicate


detection capability
comparable to other
leading technologies
currently in use by
commercial and
military maintenance
facilities.

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


UT Phased Array
• Phased array
! 128 element array with position encoder
! Rubber coupled rotating tire over wet surface
! Pulse-Echo mode
! Initial application – disbonds in thick Airbus wing structure

• Principle of operation
! Beam electronically configured and swept along array

Ultrasonic Wheel Array


Sensor Instrument (NDT
Solutions Ltd.)

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Results - wing (exfoliation corrosion)
• UWASI scan
– 0.8 mm resolution
– 100 mm x 400 mm area
– Scan time 8 seconds
– Pulse echo
– Backwall echo gating

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Summary

• The AANC provides a focal point for FAA


nondestructive evaluation activities related to
assessing advanced aircraft maintenance
technologies and transferring the technology to use.
• As these technologies mature, the Center will
continue to evolve and assess new technologies in
order to fulfill the long term commitment to the
FAA and aviation industry.

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center


Questions?

http://www.sandia.gov/aanc/AANC.htm
http://www.tc.faa.gov/

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center

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