NDI Tool for Corrosion Detection in Sub-Structure

Corrosion of metal aircraft structures affects remaining life and safety. The proposed effort will develop an inspection system capable of rapidinspection of metal substructures through metal or composite exterior panels.It will build on JENTEKs magnetoresistive array (MR-MWM-Array) and inductive array (MWM-Array) technology and uses multiple frequencies to estimate material loss via JENTEKs HyperLattice multivariate inverse methods.The objective is to detect corrosion loss of 0.02 in. depth by 0.075 in. diameter on the buried, near surface of a 0.25 in. thick metal substructure through 0.2 in. thick metal or 0.5 in. thick IM7 5240-4 composite skins. This was demonstrated in Phase I and will be extended in Phase II to address specific Air Force needs, including subsurface corrosion in the presence of seams between the outer panels and the presence of special coatings.JENTEKs latest GridStation 8200 series instruments provide significant improvements over predecessors, such as a wider frequency range including very low frequencies; simultaneous measurement at multiple frequencies; high data rates; up to 119 fully parallel channels; and improved signal-to-noise allowing rapid scanning for corrosion and other flaws.