Development of a Structural Damage Assessment System (MSC P6021)

Current methods for conducting non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of U.S. Navy structures require significant time and manpower. Inspections are typically carried out via point-by-point measurement techniques that sometimes require erection of significant scaffolding to access the structure and which, by their very design, are susceptible to missing possibly important information if the sampling grid-work is too coarse. Furthermore, current methods for storing and manipulating inspection data gathered on composite structures are cumbersome and rarely linked to analysis tools needed to quantify the damage severity and assess the impact on overall structural integrity. The goal of this SBIR program is to develop and demonstrate a structural damage assessment system (SDAS) designed to quickly provide data on the health of a composite structure. The concept proposed by MSC integrates traditional and emerging wide-area inspection techniques with wireless device(s) that transfers data to specialty analysis software using an 802.15 protocol that processes the information and returns the health assessment. The benefits of validated and verified SDAS include lower cost (due to reduced time and manpower required) and more reliable (increased confidence that a critical flaw has not gone undetected) inspections of U.S. Navy and commercial sector composite structures.