Intelligent Nondestructive Evaluation Expert System for Carbon-Carbon Composites Using Infrared Thermography

摘要

In recent years, there is a big gap between the number of qualified NDE personnel required for in-service inspections and the workforce available to meet the requirements of the world. In order to successfully fill this gap in the NDE field, an automatic inspection intelligent system is necessary. Based on fuzzy logic expert models, an intelligent NDE expert system was developed for the determination of the internal defects of carbon/carbon (C/C) composites by using infrared thermography (IRT). Specimens with phantom defects and commercial composite materials were evaluated to demonstrate the usefulness of the intelligent IRT NDE expert system in NDE inspection. This system functions as an NDE expert, incorporates fuzzy logic expert rules to effectively improve the defect detection capability and to reduce the human errors during inspection.