EngD student, 2015 intake

Research:  Life Prediction of Composites Based on NDT Data

University: Bristol

Sponsoring company: Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Defence Aerospace)

Background:  BSc (Honours) in Physics, University of Warwick 2015. During my degree I was funded by the Institute of Physics to complete an 8 week internship at Galson Sciences Ltd. where I used nuclear criticality modelling code MCNP to aid Criticality Safety Assessments. This increased my fascination with programming and modelling and led me to apply for this particular project with RCNDE.

The aim of my project is to develop a tool which can aid decision makers in whether a damaged composite component should remain in use, be repaired or be replaced. The NDT data will be used to characterise the composite and its damage before its strength is predicted. The project will use both NDT inversion techniques and Finite Element Method (FEM) material modelling techniques. The project is focussed on the defence aerospace industry.

Work has been done to look into the potential of DolphiCam, an ultrasonic testing device, to provide appropriate and rapid in-service 3D NDT data acquisition for this project and the application of Total Focussing Method (TFM) processing is being attempted. Alongside this, software is being written to automatically transfer NDT information into LS-DYNA, an FEM package, input files so that models of composite components with specified defects can be produced. Sensitivity analysis will be carried out on the effect of shape, size and position of delaminations in composite materials to ascertain how accurate the NDT characterisation of these defects needs to be.