Nondestructive evaluation methods for damage assessment in fiber-metal laminates

The Structures, Materials and Propulsion Laboratory of the NRC Institute for Aerospace Research (IAR) is engaged in a collaborative project with Bombardier Aerospace. The main objective of the project is to evaluate the potential of applying fiber‐metal laminates (FML) to aircraft types manufactured by Bombardier. As a part of this project, nondestructive evaluation (NDE) procedures have been developed and used at IAR to determine the extent of damage caused by impact, corrosion and fatigue loads in a commercial FML material (GLARE). X‐rays using radioopaque fluids as well as conventional and air‐coupled ultrasonic and eddy current methods have been investigated. This report describes the NDE procedures employed at IAR to assess damage in FML and provides examples of the results obtained utilizing each of the inspection methods and the damage types investigated. Also, the ability of the investigated NDE methods to determine damage size and the accuracy of damage measurements is discussed.