Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: To address the Navy need for a method to determine the cause of cracks in aircraft structu

Description

To address the Navy need for a method to determine the cause of cracks in aircraft structures, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new In-Situ Failure Analyzer (INFLA) based on phase-shifting shearography with advanced image-recognition algorithms. The innovation in using phase-shifting enables high-quality shearographic images of the cracked surface, together with POC"s image-recognition algorithms, allow automatic in-situ crack characterization to automatically identify the cause of cracking, such as fatigue or static overload. As a result, this system will directly meet the Navy"s need for on-aircraft, on-the- ground failure analysis of cracks found in metallic aircraft structures and help prevent similar cracks in the fleet. In Phase I, POC will conceptualize, design, and determine the feasibility of the INFLA system for on-air or on-the-ground failure analysis. In addition, we plan to demonstrate INFLA"s feasibility by constructing and testing a laboratory prototype to determine the cause of cracking found in aircraft structural materials. Based on the Phase I success, in Phase II, POC plans to develop and demonstrate a full-scale INFLA system with an integrated hardware and software system that can be effectively implemented to test the lab-generated cracks coupons and/or cracks of known origins in real flight hardware.