Glass Fiber Airplane Inspected with Infrared Lockin Thermography
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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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Abstract
Lockin thermography is a remote nondestructive testing method, suited for the inspection of large surfaces. As the method is based on heat conduction inside the material it can reveal any variation of the material thermal properties: the heating source is modulated at the desired frequency and the surface temperature is analyzed in order to obtain the amplitude signal and the phase signal in relation to the heating source. The feasibility of phase angle images eliminates the need for homogeneous surface heating which would be difficult for large areas. Inspection and quality control of the big structures of an airplane are essential to assure integrity and safety. To demonstrate the applicability of lockin thermography for on field inspections, we present the results obtained on an airplane consisting mainly of GFRP (Grob 115). Though no special treatment of the surface has been performed, we could detect hidden structures and repairs.