Maintenance and Modifications
Professor can detect aircraft aging problems
As the aircraft fleet ages and the number of in-flight material fatigue incidents climbs, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia says he has fo

As the aircraft fleet ages and the number of in-flight material fatigue incidents climbs, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia says he has found a new and reliable method of identifying potentially dangerous cracks in aging aircraft.

P. Frank Pai, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has developed a vibration-based technique he calls the boundary effect evaluation method (BEEM) and a scanning laser vibrometer that can detect tiny cracks within various materials such as aluminum alloy and composite laminates.