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Detection and Characterization of Artificial Porosity and Impact Damage in Aerospace Carbon Fiber Composites by Pulsed and Line Scan Thermography

Authors :
Clemente Ibarra-Castanedo
Pierre Servais
Matthieu Klein
Thibault Boulanger
Alain Kinard
Sébastien Hoffait
Xavier P. V. Maldague
Source :
Applied Sciences, Vol 13, Iss 10, p 6135 (2023)
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2023.

Abstract

Nondestructive testing (NDT) of composite materials is of paramount importance to the aerospace industry. Several NDT methods have been adopted for the inspection of components during production and all through the aircraft service life, with infrared thermography (IRT) techniques, such as line scan thermography (LST) and pulsed thermography (PT), gaining popularity thanks to their rapidity and versatility. On one hand, LST is an attractive solution for the fast inspection of large and complex geometry composite parts during production. On the other hand, PT can be employed for the characterization of composite materials, e.g., the determination of thermal diffusivity and defect depth estimation. In this study, the use of LST with an uncooled microbolometer camera is explored for the identification of artificially produced porosity and barely visible impact damage (BVID) on academic samples. The performance of LST is quantitatively assessed with respect to PT (considered the gold standard in this case) using a high-definition cooled camera through the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) criterium. It is concluded that, although in most cases the measured CNR values were higher for PT than for LST (as expected since a high-definition camera and longer acquisition times were used), the majority of the defects were clearly detected (CNR ≥ 2.5) by LST without the need of advanced signal processing, proving the suitability of LST for the inspection of aerospace composite components. Furthermore, the deepest defect investigated herein (z ≈ 3 mm) was detected solely by LST combined with signal processing and spatial filtering (CNR = 3.6) and not by PT (since pulse heating was not long enough for this depth). In addition, PT was used for the determination of the thermal diffusivity of all samples and the subsequent depth estimation of porosity and damaged areas by pulsed phase thermography (PPT).

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20763417
Volume :
13
Issue :
10
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Applied Sciences
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.8197a8d4491548a0a045deb264344bf4
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/app13106135