
Parts made of laminated composite materials pose an inspection challenge due to their many shapes and thicknesses, and because defects are often located near the surface. However, many parts, such as skins, stringers, and spars, consist of relatively flat sections, for which Olympus offers a complete inspection solution. The Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Flat Panel Inspection Solution is based on the OmniScan® flaw detector, GLIDER™ scanner, and Mini-Wheel encoder, in addition to probes and specific wedges developed for CFRP Flat Panel Inspection. This solution offers advanced features, such as two-axis encoded C-scans with amplitude and time-of-flight (TOF) information, gate synchronization, and data recording.
Typical defects, such as disbound defects, or inclusions embedded in repaired sections, can be quickly detected during maintenance inspections. The CFRP solution is also easy to implement in manufacturing environments, where delamination and porosity detection is critical. Our solution can be used to perform complete semiautomated mapping on either large surfaces during production, or repairs during maintenance. This solution can also be used for manual inspection of smaller parts, or difficult-to-acccess areas.

When performing complete mapping of large surfaces, the GLIDER scanner is used for accurate XY positioning during phased array or UT inspection.

The VersaMOUSE is an affordable alternative to the GLIDER in case of lower production rates and when position accuracy is less critical.
With its integrated indexing button, the VersaMOUSE can perform an encoded one-line scan, followed by indexing of the position in the perpendicular direction. Another one-line scan can then be performed and juxtaposed to the previous scan. This process is repeated to produce a complete 2D map of the area of interest.

For difficult-to-access areas such as stringers or spars, the Mini-Wheel encoder can be attached directly to the probe to achieve the smallest footprint.
The new Olympus Aqualene Wedge for composite inspection provides exceptional coupling, improved measurements, and enhanced near-surface resolution. This wedge can be used with an immersion-type setup by synchronizing the gates with the front-wall echo. A significant reduction of the wedge interface echo permits gate synchronization and close positioning of the measurement gate, in turn providing simplified signal interpretation and more coherent C-scans. Better repeatability is achieved, thus increasing the inspection rate. Aqualene wedges are available to fit NW1, NW2, and NW3 phased array probes. These wedges can be ordered with a water recuperation system (WR option) for improved contact on irregular surfaces and minimum water loss.

Considerable reduction of the interface echo provides up to 50% improvement in near-surface resolution.
In this example, the same probe and CFRP sample were used.

The near-wall probe offers a shortened dead zone at both ends (1.5 mm between the center of the first or last elements and the housing edge).

The OmniScan software has a full range of tools and displays for composite inspection applications:

OmniScan data is seamlessly imported into TomoView for further processing and analysis.
Computer-based data analysis software with a full range of composite evaluation features:
TomoView Lite Aero is dedicated to aerospace data analysis.

Free poster provides details and illustrations of our composite inspection and testing technologies.
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