Automated defect detection for ultrasonic inspection of CFRP aircraft components

An automated task sequence based on the commercial software Ultis® combined with new pre- and post-processing tools was developed to achieve a fully automated analysis of ultrasonic data obtained from large and complex CFRP components. The resulting a90/95 on reference panels containing a variety of artificial defects was 6.8 mm. The new tools include a C-scan projection optimizer that minimizes defects distortion during 3D to 2D transition, an efficient segmentation method to address challenging features (co-cured stringers, ply drop-offs, multiple thickness variations), and a novel defect detection algorithm capable of automatically extracting indications from a collection of A-scans. Results suggest that the method meets the detection requirements while significantly reducing the analysis time.