Bondline Integrity Monitoring and Assessment (BIMA) System Navy SBIR FY2012.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2012.2 Topic No.: N122-125 Topic Title: Bondline Integrity Monitoring and Assessment (BIMA) System Proposal No.: N122-125-0468 Firm: Acellent Technologies, Inc. 835 Stewart Drive Sunnyvale, California 94085-4514 Contact: Shawn Beard Phone: (408) 745-1188 Web Site: www.acellent.com Abstract: The use of adhesive bonding has led to the development of novel aircraft components with and allows for the integration of different materials (composite-to-composite, composite-to-metal, skin-to-honeycomb, etc.). However, manufacturing flaws or in-service damage may degrade such joints. An issue with the use of adhesive-bonded structures in the aircraft industry is the lack of an acceptable non-destructive inspection (NDI) technique, which is part of the reason why adhesively bonded primary structures are also fastened with mechanical fasteners. Using built-in sensors for structural health monitoring (SHM) can help overcome these inspection difficulties, and can allow monitoring of the bondline during manufacturing and throughout the structures' life - from cradle to grave. Acellent Technologies proposes to develop an on-board integrated system for detection of manufacturing and usage related damage to bonded joints in aircraft. The objective of the program is to provide the Navy with a Bondline Integrity Monitoring and Assessment (BIMA) System for detection and quantification of degradation of the bondline in aircraft structures. This information can then be transferred to prognostic models to provide predictions of remaining strength and life, thereby facilitating the development of maintenance strategies to mitigate the effects of the degradation on the aircraft safety and reliability. Benefits: Acellent Technologies, Inc. is developing a revolutionary, breakthrough technology in the field of Structural Health Monitoring that can potentially pave the way for a new class of integrated structure identification, maintenance and inspection systems. This technology, which is robust to environmental and operational changes, promises to change dramatically the way structural identification and inspection is performed in a variety of major industrial sectors. The BIMA system to be developed under the present proposal offers the potential to provide a complete solution for a wide range of structural analysis, evaluation, and maintenance requirements and enable a number of high value economic benefits to the aircraft industries. The largest and nearest-term impact areas for the technology are bonded joints on manned and unmanned aircraft especially those located in inaccessible areas in today's military aircrafts. The Department of Defense is growing the inventory of both manned and unmanned aircraft and economic factors drive the need to keep both types of aircraft in-service for longer periods of time, often well beyond their designed service life. These aircraft can cost millions of dollars in procurement and billions in R&D. New unmanned aircraft are now being used by the U.S. Navy to provide commanders with a persistent picture of surface threats, covering areas of open ocean and littoral regions as the unmanned segment of the Navy's Maritime Patrol Reconnaissance Force. For example, the Northrop Grumman Corporation developed MQ-4C Triton Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (BAMS UAV) is a maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system designed to support a variety of missions while operating independently or in collaboration with other fleet assets. As the aircraft structures age or regular usage, there is an increasing need for inspection to ensure public safety, ensure combat readiness and schedule maintenance effectively. The high cost of owning and operating these systems provides incentives for enhancing the means of evaluating and monitoring their structural integrity. The big challenge to the aircraft industry is that it must maintain a high standard of safety with its fleet in an economic environment that is intensely competitive. The proposed BIMA system could potentially lead to significant savings related to the labor-intensive scheduled maintenance costs in the military aircraft industry, can enhance the reliability of the structures and improve their efficiency and readiness. The proposed work will be conducted in close collaboration with the aircraft industries such as Northrop Grumann, to ensure that this research will be directly beneficial to them. Acellent is currently working with other industries such as the missile industry, automobile industry, wind energy and ground vehicles to enable utilization of mass-production techniques to provide high quality SHM technology at lower costs to the individual users. Once developed, the system will be available independently or in a complete package along with the monitoring layer, software and the hardware. The plug-and-play feature of the system will make it ready to use for any practical application. Return