Application of Ultrasonic C-Scan Techniques for nondestructive testing Laminated Composite Materials

In this paper practical ultrasonic C-scan techniques for nondestructive testing of laminated composite materials are developed and applied. Although it is clear that using nondestructive evaluation is very common for the assessment of the composite material quality, determining the three dimensional geometric of defects or the shape discontinuities in thin composite layers is a difficult task by using the conventional ultrasonic methods and props. In this study, a new version of ultrasonic high frequency transducer, including a captive water column delay, is developed to measure the ultrasonic attenuation in all spots with C-scan method. A composite blade related to the aerospace industry is selected for examination. These efforts resulted in effective C-scan images, allowing the determination of not only the position of the defects but also some defects in shapes in all areas. Using this method streamlines the procedure of nondestructive evaluation of thin layers composite.