Customer:
US Air Force Nondestructive Inspection Program Office, (AFRL/RXS-OL)
Challenge:
The Air Force required an independent third party to assist in reviewing and updating their nondestructive evaluation procedures and tools, which are used to maintain the Air Force’s high standards for flight safety and aircraft maintenance.
Approach:
The Air Force chose the Advanced Materials, Manufacturing and Testing Information Analysis Center (AMMTIAC), with basic center operations (
Value:
Our collective efforts will improve the detection limits of more than 75 procedures as well as the reliability of all inspections audited. The results indicate that the new prototype Raised Head Fastener (RHF) probes improve the crack detection capability by 60% more than the current pencil probes, while improving the inspection speed by a factor of two. Newly prototyped edge probes also improved detection capability by more than 60%. The new surface probes show an improvement of 50% in detection capability and will improve the inspection speed by a factor of four. The data generated and lessons learned during this project are being preserved in AMMTIAC’s library, so that they may be employed in the development of future systems.