Application of laser ultrasonic technique for non-contact detection of drilling-induced delamination in aeronautical composite components

The detection of drilling-induced delamination in composite components is a vital and challenging task in aviation industry. Numerous key components of aircrafts are made of composite materials, and drilling is often a final operation during assembly. Drilling-induced delamination is a very serious defect that significantly reduces the structural reliability, but it is rather difficult to be detected effectively due to its special location. A novel application of laser ultrasonic technique for the detection of drilling-induced delamination in composites is presented in this paper. A carbon fiber reinforced plastic laminate with drilling holes was made as specimen. A laser ultrasonic system was constructed and experiments were performed to detect the drilling-induced delamination, based on propagation characteristic of ultrasonic waves generated by pulse laser with a wavelength of 1064 nm and pulse duration of 10 ns. A laser interferometer based on two wave mixing is used to measure ultrasonic wave signals, and the morphology features of the delamination are imaged clearly by laser ultrasonic C-scan testing. The results proved that the laser ultrasonic technique is a feasible and effective method for the detection of drilling-induced delamination in composite components.