Detection of Tight Fatigue Cracks at the Root of Dampers in Fan Blades Using Sonic IR Inspection: A Feasibility Demonstration

Abstract

The results of a feasibility demonstration for the detection of tight cracks at the root of dampers in fan blades are presented. The primary purpose of these dampers is to reduce undesired vibrations of the fan blades during operation. Unfortunately cracks can develop at the root of these dampers in a very tight radius which renders their detection using other NDE techniques like Fluorescent Penetrant Inspection (FPI) and Eddy Current (EC) rather unreliable and sometimes not possible. SONIC Infra Red (IR) is proposed as an alternate effective detection technique in such situations. An optimized SONIC IR inspection technique using the SIEMAT® and Smart SIEMAT® systems is presented. An empirical study was conducted to determine the optimal excitation position for the ultrasonic horn that results in the highest crack detectability. Finite Element Modeling (FEM) was then used to further understand the actual vibrational modes that are needed to ensure detectability of such cracks and to validate the empirical results. A preliminary result from the Smart SIEMAT® system that is based on a resonance frequency excitation is also included.