Federal award (DELIVERY ORDER, fiscal year 2022)
Recipient: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF AEROSPACE ASSOCIATES
Awarding agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration / National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Funding agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration / National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Period of performance: 2017-10-16 to 2018-04-30
Current total value of award: $47177
Description: ULTRASOUND SIMULATION FOR NON-DESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION (NDE) OF COMPOSITES.  THE PURPOSE OF THIS TASK IS TO DEMONSTRATE THE USE OF NONDESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION (NDE) SIMULATION TOOLS TO IMPROVE INSPECTION OF AERONAUTIC COMPOSITES. THE OBJECTIVE IS TO ADVANCE ULTRASOUND SIMULATION TOOLS AND APPLY THEM TO COMPLEX GEOMETRY COMPOSITE INSPECTION SCENARIOS TO YIELD GUIDANCE ON OPTIMAL INSPECTION METHODS. BACKGROUND OF THE WORK: THIS WORK ARISES UNDER NASA AERONAUTICS RESEARCH MISSION DIRECTORATE (ARMD) ADVANCED COMPOSITES PROJECT (ACP). OVER THE PAST YEAR, NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER (LARC) HAS BEEN DEVELOPING A CUSTOM ULTRASOUND SIMULATION TOOL THAT IS BASED ON FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD. THE CUSTOM TOOL SIMULATED 3D ULTRASONIC WAVE PROPAGATION IN COMPOSITE MATERIALS. CURRENTLY THE SIMULATION CODE HAS BEEN VALIDATED FOR FLAT COMPOSITES OF VARIOUS ANISOTROPIC PROPERTIES. INSPECTION CHALLENGE CASES OF COMPLEX GEOMETRY COMPOSITES HAVE BEEN PROVIDED TO NASA BY INDUSTRY WITH THE INTENT THAT THE CUSTOM LARC SIMULATION CODE WILL BE IMPLEMENTED TO REPRESENT INSPECTION OF THE INSPECTION CHALLENGE CASES. THE GOALS FOR THIS SOW ARE: VERIFY CODE FUNCTIONALITY FOR COMPLEX GEOMETRY COMPOSITES SIMULATE INSPECTION CHALLENGE CASES  YIELD SIMULATION-BASED GUIDANCE FOR OPTIMIZED NDE INSPECTION METHODS DEMONSTRATE THE USE OF NDE SIMULATION FOR INSPECTION OPTIMIZATION