Nondestructive Testing Evaluation of Aircraft Fuselage Corrosion by Infrared Thermography and Finite Element Method

In this paper we are studying the nondestructive investigation of transport aircraft fuselage using infrared thermography and finite element method for a quicker and easier inspection. We will focus on the solution of the heat equation to analyze the evolution of the temperature on the external surfaces of the model. The nondestructive inspection of structures by infrared thermography requires considering some limitations such as dimension, position, thermophysical properties of the defect, temperature, heat flux... To do an investigation of the corrosion within the aircraft structure to be studied, we chose an aluminium fuselage wherein corrosion, resulted from a chemical reaction, was inserted. The simulation is done by changing heat flux and thickness of corrosion to determine the degree of detectability of the infrared thermography method by analysis of the resulted temperature differences for each heat flux value and for each corrosion thickness.