Linear-array systems for aerospace NDE Available to Purchase

Rapid large-area inspection of composite structures for impact damage and multi-layered aluminum skins for corrosion has been a recognized priority for several years in both military and civil aerospace applications. Approaches to this requirement have followed two clearly different routes: the development of novel large-area inspection systems, and the enhancement of current ultrasonic or eddy-current methods to reduce inspection times. Ultrasonic inspection is possible with standard flaw detection equipment but the addition of a linear ultrasonic array could reduce inspection times considerably. In order to investigate their potential, 9-element and 17-element linear ultrasonic arrays for composites, and 64-element arrays for aluminum skins, have been developed to DERA specifications for use with the ANDSCAN^® area scanning system. A 5 m² composite wing surface has been scanned with a scan resolution of approximately 3 mm in 6 hours. With subsequent software and hardware improvements all four composite wing surfaces (top/bottom, left/right) of a military fighter aircraft can potentially be inspected in less than a day. Array technology has been very widely used in the medical ultrasound field although rarely above 10 MHz, whereas lap-joint inspection requires a pulse center-frequency of 12 to 20 MHz in order to resolve the separate interfaces in the lap joint. A 128 mm-long multi-element array of $5 mm×2 mm$ ultrasonic elements for use with the ANDSCAN^® scanning software was produced to a DERA specification by an NDT manufacturer with experience in the medical imaging field. This paper analyses the performance of the transducers that have been produced and evaluates their use in scanning systems of different configurations.