Novel Method for Inspection of Aircraft Retread Tire Casings

For economic reasons, aircraft tires are retreaded and reused several times during their lifetimes. Due to aviation safety concerns, tire casings to be retreaded must undergo thorough inspection. Numerous methods currently exist to perform this inspection; all suffer from one drawback or another. In this proposed Phase I effort, Foster-Miller will develop a low cost inspection method which eliminates variations due to operator subjectivity while providing the ability to discern healthy and defective regions of the tire. The proposed approach as described in this proposal was shown to be feasible based on exploratory tests performed by Foster-Miller on a passenger car tire with inherent defects. The approach to be developed during Phase I should allow careful mapping of defective areas of the tire. Phase II will involve development of both a manual and a semi-automatic piece of equipment which can detect delaminations, separated or broken cords and other anomalies encountered on tires. This equipment will use techniques which are affordable and sufficiently rapid to allow 100 percent inspection if desired, and the hardware and software developed can be used by unskilled operators after a short period of training.