Nondestructive evaluation of aircraft coatings with infrared diffuse reflectance spectra

摘要

Aircraft coatings degrade over time, but aging can be difficult to detect before failure and delamination. We present a method to evaluate aircraft coatings in situ using infrared diffuse reflectance spectra. This method can detect and classify coating degradation much earlier than visual inspection. The method has been tested on two different types of coatings that were artificially aged in an autoclave. Spectra were measured using a hand-held diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectrometer (DRIFTS). One set of 72 samples can be classified as either aged or unaged with 100% accuracy. A second sample set contained samples that had been artificially aged for 0, 24, 48 or 96 hours. Several classification methods are compared, with accuracy better than 98% possible.