Aircraft Corrosion Inspection

Acellent Technologies, Inc. (Acellent) proposes to develop a reliable Cascading Sensor LAyer Network (CSLAN) based on Acellents SMART Layer® technology to detect and continuously monitor corrosion related damages. Multilayered metal structures in aircrafts are sometime subjected to very hostile environmental condition which are prone to develop stress corrosion cracks, pitting corrosion and other form of corrosions. The proposed Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems will be specifically designed to detect damages in multi-layered structural components (up to five layers) under harsh environmental condition. A robust damage detection algorithm using frequency sweep scheme, innovative actuation pattern and wave feature extraction will be developed to see corrosion damage in the order of few hundredth of an inch. The proposed system is integrated with a portable hardware device (on-board plug and play system and miniaturized off-board data analyzer, user interface etc.). The system neither requires extensive understanding of corrosion nor requires the expertise on the inspection scheme. The objective of the proposed program will be to provide the U.S. Air Force an autonomous SHM system for detection and quantification of degradation in aircraft structures specifically due to corrosion. This can also be achieved with reliable probability of detection (POD) reducing the false positives. BENEFIT: Upon completion of the project, Acellent expects to commercialize the CSLAN system. First the system will be offered to the deployed multilayered critical components in F-15 aircraft. The system can potentially be used after customization to detect and monitor corrosion damages in all military and commercial aging aircrafts. The anticipated benefit for the U.S. Air Force are: 1) Continuously monitor corrosion damage with out having aircraft down time 2) Inspect and monitor damage without dismantling structural components 3) Reduce life cycle cost of military aircrafts 4) Increase safety and reliability of functional aircraft components.