Detection of Second-Layer Corrosion in Aging Aircraft Fuselage

A Digital X-ray imaging system using Compton backscattering has been developed to obtain a cross-sectional profile and mass loss of corroded lap-splices of aging aircraft from density variation. A slit-type camera was designed to focus on a small scattering volume inside the material, from which the backscattered photons are collected by a collimated scintillator detector for interpretation of material characteristics. The cross section of the lap-joint is scanned by moving the scattering volume through the thickness direction of the specimen. The mass loss of each layer has been estimated from a Compton backscatter A-scan to obtain the thickness of each layer including the aluminum sheet, the corrosion layer and the sealant. Quantitative information such as location and width of planar corrosion in the lap splices of fuselages is obtained by deconvolution using a nonlinear least-square error minimization method(BFGS method): A simple reconstruction model is also introduced to overcome distortion of the Compton backscatter data due to attenuation effects attributed to beam hardening and quantum noise.