Reference #: 01446
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for Angle-beam guided waves for composite-damage identification and monitoring
Background:
In composites, manufacturing flaws and operational damage are inevitable and need to be detected for quality assurance.
In-service damage of composite structures is also possible; such damage may be barely visible impact damage. This in-service damage is hard to detect but could strongly affect the service life. It is imperative to detect these defects at the earliest possible time to avoid catastrophic failures of these structures. What is needed is the efficient detection of different types of manufacturing flaws and operational damage in composite structures over large areas without doing point-by-point through-thickness scanning, which, although accurate, takes a long time.
Invention Description:
The invention uses specific ultrasonic waves which are sensitive to different types of composite flaws or damage. The invention is intended for rapid large-area inspection of composite structures to detect the presence of manufacturing flaws or operational damage and identify their type and location. For more detailed evaluation, the method of this invention can be followed up by local-area conventional methods (e.g., through-thickness ultrasound, X-ray, eddy current, etc.) which are more precise but slower and labor intensive. The advantage of the proposed method is that it provides rapid assessment of a large area and permits the identification of critical local areas that need more attention with conventional but labor-intensive inspection methods.
Potential Applications:
This invention has a major potential application in the aerospace industry where the use of composite materials is at large for the manufacturing of aerospace structures. Guided wave detection over large areas can be highly effective and reliable in the detection of operational damage in composites such as delamination growth or impact damage. Once the large-area assessment of the structure has been done, traditional methods (e.g. ultrasonics, X-ray, eddy current, etc.) may be used for nondestructive evaluation of the smaller localized area where the damage has occurred. The proposed invention is likely to be adopted by researchers and industrial users for ensuring quality control of composite structures in pre-flight and post-flight conditions.
Advantages and Benefits:
In composites, manufacturing flaws and operational damage are inevitable and need to be detected for quality assurance. In-service damage of composite structures is also possible; such damage may be barely visible impact damage (BVID); this in-service damage is hard to detect but may strongly affect the service life. It is imperative to detect these defects at the earliest to avoid catastrophic failures of these structures. This invention describes a novel method by which users will be able to utilize the long-distance guided-wave propagation in large areas of the structure to detect the presence of damage and then narrow down the search to a more localized area in the structure where the traditional nondestructive inspection can be conducted. This two-step process can be used in order to efficiently and accurately detect the presence of damage in a rapid and reliable manner to localize areas where patches and repairs need to be made. This will lead to increased productivity thereby minimizing the risk of using defective or damaged parts.