Polymer Composites in the Aerospace Industry

15

Nondestructive testing of damage in aerospace composites

R.H. Bossi¹,  and V. Giurgiutiu^2     1The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA, USA     ²University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

Abstract

The methods and instrumentations for nondestructive testing (NDT), inspection (NDI), and evaluation (NDE) of aerospace composites are discussed. The chapter starts with a presentation of the major types of aerospace composite damage, which is substantially different from the damage usually encountered in aerospace metallic structures. Subsequently, the chapter focuses on the NDT, NDI, NDE methods for polymer composite structures and discusses several important topics, including probability of detection, visual and tap testing, ultrasonic testing, thermography, ...