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WWW.AERO-MAG.COM 24 AEROSPACEMANUFACTURING | SEPTEMBER 2011
IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE DESIGN I TEST & MEASUREMENT
THAT COUNTS
Mike Richardson meets with Diagnostic Sonar’s chief engineer Dave Lines to discover how the company’s FlawInspecta ultrasonic array system is finding increasing acceptance in ultrasonic NDT applications.
M
any major aircraft OEMs now face some very unique and specific test and measurement
challenges, due largely to the increasing use of carbon fibre composite materials found within the structures of civil aircraft programmes like the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This in turn creates a demand for
the kind of inspection systems that can rapidly identify potential composite material quality issues, such as those introduced during aircraft production and those that have come as a result of barely visible impact damage (BVID) due to a bird strike or an unintentional collision with an aircraft on the ramp. A variety of inspection methods are
being employed in the aerospace industry such as phased arrays for ultrasonic non- destructive testing (NDT) applications which enable technicians to identify certain anomalies inside the composite material. However, the requirement for every part to be 100% inspected sees growing concern over the additional time and resources that will be needed to complete such tasks. It’s even been said that the amount of carbon fibre
Diagnostic Sonar’s FlawInspecta: Uses two PXI slots for full matrix capture and total focusing at real-time rates
composite parts Airbus and Boeing intend to produce will need ‘hundreds’ of extra people just to analyse the inspection data taken from the composite structures. Therefore there is a growing demand to introduce semi-automated inspection systems to identify certain anomalies and features within the data. Established in 1975 primarily to
develop real-time medical imaging solutions, Diagnostic Sonar Limited (DSL) has been designing phased arrays for ultrasonic NDT applications for over 30 years. By chance, the company was approached by British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) regarding some critical inspection issues it was experiencing with carbon fibre composite items. DSL
provided the company with one of its medical ultrasonic array systems typically being used in the obstetrics sector and with some modifications, enabled British Aerospace to conduct in-depth analysis of its carbon fibre material. “The aerospace test and inspection
sector is undergoing some unique and specific techniques where large amounts of carbon fibre composites are being used in the aircraft production process,” begins DSL’s chief engineer, Dave Lines. “We’ve collaborated with Boeing by providing our FlawInspecta hardware coupled to a mobile automated scanner and inspection system to enable Boeing’s technicians to image carbon fibre parts at real-time rates. We’ve also been
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