A Low-Cost, Hybrid Acoustic-Ultrasonic Technique for In-situ Bondline Condition Monitoring

To address the US Navy's need for an innovative nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and structural health monitoring (SHM) technique for in-situ monitoring of bondline integrity for composite structures, X-wave Innovations, Inc. (XII) and Drexel University (DU) propose a low-cost, hybrid acoustic-ultrasonic technique (HAUT). The enabling NDE/SHM technique will allow the in-situ monitoring of the integrity of bondline, including composite to composite bonding and composite to metal bonding, from production to operation. For the Phase I program, XII will focus on prototyping a system and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed HAUT technique. By the end of Phase I, we will show a working version of the HAUT prototype and have its performance evaluated. For the Phase II program, XII will refine the prototype system design and development with improved hardware and software. At the end of Phase II, we will deliver a final HAUT prototype to the Navy for further evaluation. For the Phase III program, XII will focus on collaborating with our commercial partners to improve the HAUT technology and package it into to a turnkey commercially-available system.