초록 ▼

Thermoplastic welding is an emerging technology targeted at significantly reducing the manufacturing cost of aerospace structure by eliminating fasteners and the touch labor associated with fasteners to prepare, install, and inspect the assemblies. Quality welds are highly dependent upon achieving a

Thermoplastic welding is an emerging technology targeted at significantly reducing the manufacturing cost of aerospace structure by eliminating fasteners and the touch labor associated with fasteners to prepare, install, and inspect the assemblies. Quality welds are highly dependent upon achieving appropriate temperatures everywhere along the bond line. The present invention is a system that evaluates the quality of the welds involving inputting an EM pulse to the embedded susceptor and listening to the acoustic response that the pulse generates to determine weld quality from the sound.

대표청구항 ▼

[ We claim:] [1.] A nondestructive method for evaluating the integrity and strength of a thermoplastic weld or adhesive bond having an embedded susceptor, comprising the steps of:(a) transmitting an electromagnetic pulse in the form of an oscillating magnetic field from an induction coil positioned

[ We claim:] [1.] A nondestructive method for evaluating the integrity and strength of a thermoplastic weld or adhesive bond having an embedded susceptor, comprising the steps of:(a) transmitting an electromagnetic pulse in the form of an oscillating magnetic field from an induction coil positioned near one surface of a composite assembly containing the weld or bond, the pulse traveling through the weld or bond to the susceptor, the pulse being received by the susceptor to cause the susceptor to vibrate at ultrasonic frequency and to create an acoustic signal representative of ultrasonic vibrations in the susceptor;(b) receiving at the one surface of the composite assembly the acoustic signal representing the ultrasonic vibration of the susceptor transmitted through the weld or bond; and(c) analyzing the received signal to assess the thermoplastic weld quality or adhesive bond quality in terms of integrity and strength.