Aircraft systems perform in highly corrosive environments where both structural integrity and lifetime of components are at risk. Corrosion leads to significant loss in material leading to stress concentration and reduction of the aircraft flight life. Degradation within loading structures can be critical to aircraft integrity. Inspection and detection of subsurface corrosion is based on visible features such as flaking and blistering. Improving methods for detection of corrosion under insulation (CUI) is essential to the aerospace industry to lower the amount of non-available flight hours and lower expenses in repair. Pulsed Eddy Current Thermography (PECT) shows potential as a non-destructive method for detection of CUI on carbon steel components. Using the direct thermal response of the corroded material through the excitation of electromagnetic fields to induce eddy currents, temperature localization of defects can be captured through infrared (IR) thermography. In this work, standard corrosion defects were characterized using temperature post-processing and phase analysis. This study demonstrates the applicability of PECT for CUI defection. Specifically, potential corroded defects from 0.5 to 5 mm were detected with higher accuracy for smaller defects through phase thermography. This ability to accurately detect defects under insulation shows high potential and promise for the implementation in industry of PECT for a more efficient mitigation of corrosion.
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