E-Nose as a Potential Quality Assurance Technology for the Detection of Surface Contamination by Aeronautic Fluids

In aeronautic industry, an important step towards an energy-efficient aircraft is the use of composite materials (carbon-fibre-reinforced plastics, CFRP) showing excellent mechanical properties combined with low specific weight. Since assembly and maintenance of CFRP aircraft components are preferably to be performed by adhesive bonding, it is critical for in-field quality assessment (QA) procedures to check for surface contaminations by aeronautic fluids (e.g. hydraulic and de-icing fluids, release agent, water) that may eventually affect the bond strength and robustness. To this aim, any non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques have not been yet validated for ensuring the quality of the bonds.

The aerospace industry and several frameworks of public international research are devising significant financial resources to promote the development of energy-efficient aircraft transport. ENEA UTTP/MDB is involved in two international cooperations financed by EU in the framework of ENCOMB project (extended non-destructive testing of composite bonds quality assessment) and of ICARO project (in-field CFRP surface contamination assessment by an artificial olfaction tool). ENCOMB is an FP7 project that specifically addresses the research for new NDT techniques that could be used for the quality assessment of CFRP panel adhesive bonding, while ICARO project has the aim to develop an artificial olfaction tool as a suitable NDT technique capable to implement a specific detection of contaminant traces on CFRP surfaces and prevent damage or failures.