An Australian Perspective on the Application of Infrared Thermography to the Inspectionof Military Aircraft

This paper provides a summary of the Australian experience with infrared thermography as a nondestructive inspection (NDI) tool for through-life support of aircraft within the Australian Defence Force (ADF). It covers the key variants of active thermography including flash, synchronous (or lock-in), and sonic as well as thermoelastic stress analysis and presents a range of applications to military aircraft including the F/A-18, F-111, and the MRH-90. This work, done by the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation over a period of a decade, has helped to clarify some of the key challenges confronting the introduction of infrared thermography as a routine method of inspection within the ADF. It is argued that the importance of infrared thermography is set to grow with the emergence of aircraft like the Tiger and MRH-90 which are assembled from light-weight composite materials that are amenable to thermal forms of inspection.