Using the Pulsed Eddy Current Techniques for Monitoring the Aircraft Structure Condition

Abstract It is known that during operation, the aircraft construction materials are exposed to significant mechanical loads and changes in temperature for a very short period of time. All this leads to various defects and damages in the aircraft assemblies and units that need to be inspected for the safe operation of the aircraft, their assemblies, and units. In some cases, the implementation of inspection or diagnostic is accompanied by the emergence of technical difficulties caused by the large size of the aircraft assemblies or units and limited access to their local places. Under such conditions, ensuring the possibility of diagnosis in hard-to-reach places of the object becomes especially important. The problem can be solved by applying wireless technologies. It allows spatial separation of the probes and the signal processing units, which simplifies the scanning of the surfaces of the large assemblies and units in hard-to-reach places. In this article, the description of the developed wireless system of eddy current inspection for aircraft structural materials is given. Experimental results of object scanning are given in the form of a distribution of the values of probe signal informative parameters (amplitude, frequency and decrement) along the object coordinates.