Throttling Gel Bipropellant Engine

Not Available As the naval aviation fleet continues to age, methods for accurately predicting the presence of structural flaws-- such as hidden corrosion-- that compromise airworthiness become increasingly necessary. Ultrasonic guided waves, Lamb waves, allow large sections of aircraft structures to be rapidly inspected. However, extracting quantitative information from Lamb wave data has always involved highly trained personnel with a detailed knowledge of mechanical waveguide physics. Our proposed work focuses on a variety of different tomographic reconstruction techniques to graphically represent the Lamb wave data in quantitative maps that can be easily interpreted by technicians. Because the velocity of Lamb waves depends on thickness, for example, we can convert the traveltimes of the fundamental Lamb modes into a thickness map of the inspection region. This proposal describes practical implementations of Lamb wave tomographic imaging techniques that will be person-portable and optimized for in-the-field testing of large-area aircraft structures.