Defect visualization of aircraft UHF antenna radome using full-field pulse-echo ultrasonic propagation imaging system

Most of aircraft antennas usually have various types of radome made of composite materials for protecting antenna structures. However, these antenna radome structures, which are installed on the outside of airplane, are easy to be damaged by external forces such as drag, foreign object, bird strike and others. In this study, full-field pulse-echo ultrasonic propagation imaging (PE UPI) system is proposed as the non-destructive inspection technique to visualize manufacturing defects in composite antenna radome. Based on the results of the sample case study, it is shown that the ultrasonic wave propagation imaging (UWPI) that is generated by the proposed full-field PE UPI system is able to highlight the intact internal condition of antenna structure and its defect area. Additional damage visualization techniques like ultrasonic energy mapping (UEM), variable time window amplitude map (VTWAM) and also ultrasonic spectral imaging (USI) algorithms are applied to improve the reliability of the damage visualization. It can be concluded that the proposed PE UPI system is an effective non-destructive inspection technique for the composite radome structures.