Abstract
Undesired manufactured or in-service produced anomalies in the form of voids in the SOFI and unbonds in the heat tiles can significantly reduce their designed effectiveness. Additionally, unbonds in the heat tiles may cause their complete separation from the fuselage exposing it to extreme heat. Millimeter wave NDT methods are viable candidate for life-cycle inspection of the SOFI and the acreage heat tiles of the Space Shuttle fleet. The results of these investigations described in this paper clearly showed the utility of these methods for detecting localized anomalies in thick SOFI and acreage heat tiles. These methods are fast and robust and the systems used to produce these images are small, real-time and provide a significant amount of useful information about the nature of an anomaly (e.g., size, location, etc.) without the need for complex image processing. This investigation is currently ongoing and additional results will be provided in the final paper.
Recommended Citation
S. Kharkovsky et al., "Millimeter Wave Detection of Localized Anomalies in the Space Shuttle External Fuel Tank Insulating Foam and Acreage Heat Tiles," Proceedings of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (2005, Ottawa, Ontario), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), May 2005.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1109/IMTC.2005.1604407
Meeting Name
IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (2005: May 16-19, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)
Department(s)
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Keywords and Phrases
External Tank; Far-Field; Heat Tiles; Insulating Foam; Millimeter Waves; Near-Field; Nondestructive Testing; Space Shuttle
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
1091-5281
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2005 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 May 2005
