The development cycle of new aeronautical products has been significantlyreduced recently due to the increasing use of concurrent engineering tools.Such tools are developed in order to include modelling for aerodynamic andstructure design, or virtual platforms. However, the NDT phase still dependsstrongly on the availability of representative structures. Given thesecircumstances, the development cycle addresses NDT in the last stage, thuspotentially inducing delays in the testing set-up as well as testing costoverruns.A wide range of tools has been developed in order to better understand andcontrol the NDT parameters for ultrasonic, radiography or eddy currents.Though these tools are not those appropriate for aeronautic structures,especially when composite materials are concerned, it already becomesevident that they can provide help through at least two axes:1. earlier integration of NDT in the development cycle2. better NDT information towards the design office or the processThe evaluation of NDT modelling tools is currently underway at AerospatialeMatra CCR and has covered till now a number of applications. Main concernsof the aeronautic industry and the potential contribution of modelling arediscussed and illustrated.
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