Opportunities for using the thermal imaging method of nondestructive inspection for skin delamination diagnosis in honeycomb structures used in modern aircraft

Abstract

The modern aviation industry has many applications for honeycomb composite panels (HCP). The HCP-manufactured product line becomes more extended. This dictates a need for most effective and inexpensive methods for nondestructive inspection for HCP integrity that can ensure a high level of flight safety. One of promising methods for nondestructive inspection is the thermal technique. This paper presents and analyses the method feasibility of revealing the delamination of outer skin from an HCP filling. This task is performed by numerical simulation and the paper presents a pictorial test with a sample of HCP typical of aircraft engineering. Our results demonstrate how the thermal imaging tools can be used for the fact of skin delamination with regard for technical restrictions found in real experiments with a physical sample of HCP.