Porosity assessment of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) in aviation applications (PorComp)

In this project NDT Consultants LTD (NDTC) would like to partner with NPL in order to carry out comprehensive research characterization of porosity contents and analysis of data in composite samples. The current main method used by the NDT industry to assess porosity levels in composites is Ultrasound Attenuation (UA). However, this method has drawbacks such as low accuracy and sensitivity. and because of this the industry often uses additional NDT methods such as Computer Tomography (CT) and Infrared Thermography. This makes the inspection time longer and the NDT method complex to interpret and thus costly.

NDTC would like to improve the UA method by performing automatic measurements at several ultrasonic frequencies and use a developed software that will analyse the ultrasonic data and determine the porosity content in the specimen more accurately and with higher sensitivity.

Success of this project will strengthen the position of NDTC in the market of NDT products and improve their competitiveness. It will also allow the company to grow and expand their market to other sectors that use composite materials.