Ultrasonic Guided Wave Nondestructive Testing for Helicopter Rotor Blades

Ultrasonic guided waves are used to detect the delamination between skin and honeycomb of a composite helicopter rotor blade. Theoretical work is c arried out for guided waves in the trailing edge of a rotor blade, which is a multilayer composi te kin/NOMEX half space structure. The dispersion relation is obtained with the global m atrix method. Theoretically driven experiments are conducted on a composite rotor blade secti on 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.