Automation for Nondestructive Inspection of Aircraft

Nondestructive Inspection Research of Composite Materials Used On the Commercial Fleet: Infrared Imaging for Defect Detection in Aircraft Structures Using Chaotic and Broadband Sound Excitation

Vision algorithms for guiding the Automated NonDestructive Inspector of aging aircraft skins

Under the FAA Aging Aircraft Research Program we are developing robots to deploy conventional and, later, new-concept NDI sensors for commercial aircraft skin inspection. Our prototype robot, the Automated NonDestructive Inspector (ANDI), holds to the aircraft skin with vacuum assisted suction cups, scans an eddy current sensor, and translates across the aircraft skin via linear actuators. Colo...

Assessment and Monitoring for Railway Tracks Reliability and Safety using Nondestructive Testing Measurement Systems

The deterioration of railway tracks raises great concerns about the integrity of assessments and evaluations of railway tracks currently in service. Integrated inspection strategies coupled with innovations in inspection technology can lead to significant improvements in operational cost efficiency and reliability without the requirement of a fundamental shift in the existing understanding o...

Nondestructive Assessment of Aerospace Components by Means of Pulsed Thermography

Infrared (IR) thermography is a nondestructive, non-contact and non-intrusive technique that allows the fast inspection of large and complex structures with limited accessibility. Pulsed thermography is particularly interesting for the inspection of aerospace materials such as composites given that, after submitting the specimen surface to a thermal front, the most common types of subsurface di...

Analysis of Commercial Aeronautics Applications of Laser Ultrasonics for Composite Manufacturing

Laser-based ultrasonic techniques have been investigated for the nondestructive testing of advanced aeronautic composite structures for more than twenty years. Several organizations have evaluated the technology at various levels during this period. In one case, EADS (formerly Aerospatiale) acquired, jointly with Dassault Aviation, a laser ultrasonic system from a now defunct provider. In anoth...