Composite airframes are generally tolerant of small-to-moderate levels of damage withoutbecoming a serious structural integrity issue. There is little concern about the effect onimmediate structural integrity of very localized matrix cracks (intralaminar cracks). However,all detected damage needs to be repaired in some way to eliminate long-term degradation fromenvironmental factors. Of particular interest are the long-term aging effects of localized damagegrowth. The research being undertaken at the University of New South Wales, AustralianDefence Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA) has developed several optical nondestructiveinspection (NDI) techniques and assessment methods that can identify the effects of aging onunrepaired damage, or defects not found over many inspection intervals.This paper will highlight the effect of local damage on composite structures throughinterrogation by optical NDI and the impact of loads on damage growth potential. The benefitsand beauty of optical NDI is that a full-field view of the damaged area can be investigated, themethods employed are non-contact, they provide a permanent and historical record of thedamaged area for future reference and their sensitivity allows a true picture of the damagecriticality to be assessed. The paper provides several illustrative examples of optical NDI ondamaged components.
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