The Feasibility of Using X-Ray Induced Acoustic Computed Tomography for Non-Destructive Testing of Aircraft Structural

Abstract

Aviation safety is a very important aspect of the aviation industry. One of the most important methods for increasing aviation safety is the non-destructive testing method. The non-destructive testing method is considered to be the most effective method for checking defects, widely used in the aviation industry. X-ray induced Acoustic Computed Tomography (XACT) is a new novel imaging modality based on the X-ray induced acoustic effect. A short-pulsed of X-rays are required to achieve a thermal response and generate acoustic waves due to thermoelastic expansion. XACT takes advantage of X-ray absorption contrast with the ultrasonic spatial resolution for deep imaging. The goal of this work is to demonstrate the feasibility of XACT for defect detection in aircraft structures as a non-destructive testing method to overcome the limitations of most frequent techniques used non-destructive testing (NDT) methods are outlined in Chapter 1. In this work, there are two main objectives to demonstrate the XACT technique are as follows, (1) introduce and proving the feasibility of XACT through simple models and (2) a full demonstration of XACT with three models from simple to complex structures. This work demonstrates that XACT has the potential to be implemented in-field NDT for aircraft maintenance and inspection due to its feasibility in detect defects with accessibility to a single side of the object.