Mobile shearography system for the inspection of aircraft and automotive components

Shearography is an approved and powerful tool for the nondestructive investigation of technical components with respect to material faults and structural imperfections. An application field of high interest is the inspection of aircraft and automotive components. Both material and structural imperfections can be recognized as typical fringe patterns in the shearogram. However, a reliable fault detection requires a detectable fault response to the applied load at the surface and a sufficient quality of the fringe pattern as well. Therefore, the testing of large-scale technical objects having in general noncooperative surfaces needs a careful design of the following system components: the shearography sensor, the illumination unit, the loading system, and the evaluation software. We report a mobile shearography system that was especially designed for the inspection of aircraft and automotive parts under industrial boundary conditions. Several examples illustrate the efficiency of the system.