Ultrasonic Guided Wave Nondestructive Testing for Helicopter Rotor Blades

摘要

Ultrasonic guided waves are used to detect the delamination between skin and honeycomb of a composite helicopter rotor blade. Theoretical work is carried out for guided waves in the trailing edge of a rotor blade, which is a multilayer composite skin/NOMEX half space structure. The dispersion relation is obtained with the global matrix method. Theoretically driven experiments are conducted on a composite rotor blade section to illustrate the effect of delamination to through transmission ultrasonic energy. Animations will be shown to demonstrate the delamination detecting concept. The study of guided wave excitation and propagation provide analytical background for optimization of ultrasonic transducers.