Automated Non-destructive Analysis and Advanced 3d Defect Characterisation from Ultrasonic Scans of Composites

At present the civil aerospace industry is undergoing its most rapid period of change in history, due to the large-scale move from metal to composite primary structures. This poses an immediate throughput challenge for the non-destructive testing (NDT) community on the production line where, initially, all composite primary structure will be inspected at manufacture. The background of composites NDT research in the UK has been covered recently in a review [1]. The current paper provides information in two new areas. Firstly, automated NDT analysis and sentencing to improve the throughput of the NDT stage in the composite manufacturing process; and secondly, 3D characterisation of composites, providing more information for the concession (disposition) process. 3D characterisation also allows large-scale measurement of material properties such as ply wrinkling (marceling) that have hitherto been inaccessible in the body of the material itself. In the future, structural designers may be able to specify acceptance criteria that can be varied with 3D structural location and thus remove weight from the structure that is currently only required because of the uncertainties associated with current bulk-property NDT measurements.