Impact damage

Impact damage can quickly be identified using conventional A-scan ultrasonic inspection or advanced phased array B-scan and C-scan techniques. In most cases the extent of damage can be quantified providing important information for stress and design engineers.  Once the laminate is repaired this can be inspected with ultrasound to check that the new laminate is fully integrated and consolidated with the original structure. 

Wavelength NDT are working on techniques to translate NDT data into forms that can be utilised by Finite Element analysis tools to help predict the damage tolerance of a structure with impact damage in it.   Read more about the NDT2DT project.

Impacts to cored laminates can be tricky test particulary if the core is only parially damaged.   Wavelength NDT use a range of acoustic and ultrasonic techniques to inspect cored laminate damage including digital taptesting, acoustic pitch-catch resonance, ultrasonic resonance and low frequency pulse echo ultrasound.