The development cycle of new aeronautical products has been significantly reduced recently due to the increasing use of concurrent engineering tools. Such tools are developed in order to include modelling for aerodynamic and structure design, or virtual platforms. However, the NDT phase still depends strongly on the availability of representative structures. Given these circumstances, the development cycle addresses NDT in the last stage, thus potentially inducing delays in the testing set-up as well as testing cost overruns. A wide range of tools has been developed in order to better understand and control the NDT parameters for ultrasonic, radiography or eddy currents. Though these tools are not those appropriate for aeronautic structures, especially when composite materials are concerned, it already becomes evident that they can provide help through at least two axes: 1) earlier integration of NDT in the development cycle 2) better NDT information towards the design office or the process. The evaluation of NDT modelling tools is currently underway at Aerospatiale Matra CCR and has covered till now a number of applications. Main concerns of the aeronautic industry and the potential contribution of modelling are discussed and illustrated.
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