Advanced deep focus acoustic microscope for nondestructive inspection of metals and composite materials

Advanced materials including high density composites, metal matrix, and ceramic metal matrix are critical to numerous applications associated with current and next generation aircraft for cost efficiency, safety and reliability. The wide variety of advanced materials used in current and next generation aerospace construction creates significant challenges for existing material characterization technologies, both in defect resolution and minimizing disassembly to reduce platform downtime. Known for their significant weight savings versus metal alternatives, advanced composites and specialized metals provide weight advantages and better performance, but suffer from short operational usage histories and frequently unknown lifecycle parameters. An innovative acoustic microscope developed at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and licensed to OKOS Solutions produces sharper images over a depth of field more than 60 times greater than current acoustic microscope transducers. This results in an acoustic microscope that does not need repositioning to accurately detect defects and aberrations in the microstructure of thick components. This deep focus capability has the potential to replace fixed focal length technology in existing commercial equipment used for nondestructive testing, and improve materials characterization in a variety of industries, providing more accurate results in less time and lower cost; with better resolution. With the deep focus probe capability to "peel away the layers, one by one, like the skins of an onion," in a single scan, with higher resolution at each layer, several potential applications exist, both within DoD and commercial. This paper will discuss the underlying technology behind this advanced deep focus probe, along with several applications of this advanced technology for the inspection of DoD advanced aerospace composite and metallic components provided by the Army and commercial aerospace vendors.