Investigation of Corrosion in Aluminum/Adhesive Lap-Splices Using Pulse-Echo Ultrasonic Techniques

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1993
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Patton, T.
Hsu, D. K.
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Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation
Center for Nondestructive Evaluation

Begun in 1973, the Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation (QNDE) is the premier international NDE meeting designed to provide an interface between research and early engineering through the presentation of current ideas and results focused on facilitating a rapid transfer to engineering development.

This site provides free, public access to papers presented at the annual QNDE conference between 1983 and 1999, and abstracts for papers presented at the conference since 2001.

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Corrosion can exist in any layer of a simple aluminum/adhesive lap-splice. For lap- splices where only one aluminum surface is accessible, first layer corrosion is corrosion that occurs on or under the accessible skin; and second layer corrosion is that which exists behind the adhesive/scrim layer on the upper or lower surface of the inaccessible skin. Many different nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques can detect first layer corrosion, and much progress has been made quantifying corrosion that exists in this layer[l]. Due to the layered nature of a lap-splice, second layer corrosion is much more difficult to detect, and also more difficult to quantify. Current maintenance procedures also make it difficult for researchers to obtain lap-splice corrosion samples from serviceable aircraft. The detection of corrosion in lap-splice assemblies has been given an important inspection priority by the airline industry, and regular inspection procedures have been developed to meet these new requirements. During maintenance, if corrosion is suspected in a lap-splice area, the area is opened up for further inspection by removing the rivets, adhesive and sometimes the paint. If the corrosion damage is beyond the manufacturer’s tolerances, the corroded area is cut out and patch-repaired; otherwise, the corrosion is removed by chemical or mechanical means, leaving a serviceable but thinner metal skin when the joint is reassembled[2]. In either case the original character of the lap-splice has been destroyed by the maintenance process, and its use for NDE purposes is lost. In this light, it becomes necessary for researchers to fabricate their own laboratory samples and compare these artificial samples with actual in-service samples.

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Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 1993