Aircraft Wing Inspection Based on Anomalous Wave Propagation Imaging

Abstract

Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and structural health management (SHM) with the ability to evaluate the severity of a damage are important to ensure the reliability of a structure. We propose a local non-destructive evaluation (NDE) system based on Anomalous Wave Propagation Imaging (AWPI) method. When possible damage is flagged during the lifecycle of the structure, the proposed system will be launched for automatic damage evaluation. This technology was demonstrated on a CFRP skin-spar-stringers wingbox integrated with an AE sensor. 17 mm diameter impact damage was made between the stringers using hammer strike from outer surface of the skin. Based on the impact location determined by other global structural health monitoring system, the AWPI automatically inspects an area 400×400 mm2 with the impacted location enclosed. Anomalous Wave Propagation Movie (AWPM) was generated as inspection result. As contrast to its predecessor, the AWPM shows only the damage induced ultrasonic wave (anomalous wave), making the damage detection an intuitive decision making process. Precise damage localization was performed by identifying the location of area with anomalous wave propagation in the AWPM. Besides, the size of the area with anomalous wave agreed well with the size of impact damage, which demonstrated that damage size quantification is possible using the proposed system. Being sensitive only to anomalous wave, it is expected that this NDE system is exceptionally suitable not only for aircraft structures such as wingbox with stiffeners, but also for other complex engineering structures.