Use of Three Dimensional Imaging to Perform Aircraft Composite Inspection: Proof of Concept

The Boeing Commercial Aircraft Company's 787 is the first commercial airliner with a large number of its structural components made of composite material. The Airbus A350 will follow by 2013. Composite material has been incorporated in airliners for many years. Composites have great advantages as a material of construction for aircraft. It has a high strength to weight ratio and the resulting aircraft weighs significantly less, producing a fuel savings. Composite materials have been associated with aircraft accidents as well. For instance, in the accident involving American Airlines Flight 587 the tail fin of an Airbus A300-605R came off the aircraft after takeoff from JFK Airport. Visual inspection is the primary means of detecting composite damage. However, in remote locations in the world where commercial airliners fly there might not be trained inspectors who can adequately inspect composite structure for damage. In this paper we discuss how we used LIDAR scans of a composite test article projected in a three (3) dimensional, immersive environment to determine whether we could see surface damage. Our proof of concept experiment showed that we could see all the damage we had inflicted on the part, along with some of the existing damage on the test article. The combination of the two technologies, LIDAR and three (3) dimensional, immersive environments, have great promise in providing means to visually inspect composite materials under a variety of conditions.