Reliability of damage detection in advanced composite aircraft structures

Carbon fibre reinforced composite structures are being used for up to 50% of the airframe weight in modern airliner designs, including pressurised fuselage barrels and main wings.

Composite materials are susceptible to damage from inadvertent impacts.

The damage takes the form of surface dents often associated with subsurface delaminations of a significantly greater area than the visible dent.

While staff in the aviation industry are familiar with metallic structures and how they respond to accidental impacts, pilots, maintenance staff and ground crew may be less familiar with the way in which composite materials respond to impacts, making them less able to recognise and thus detect, a damaged composite structure.

This study was performed in order to establish the appearance of surface flaws arising from impact to a polymer composite aircraft structure, and then to determine the relation between detection reliability using visual inspection procedures and the size and shape of surface flaws.