Novel NDE fiber optic corrosion sensor

Life extension programs for military metallic aircraft are becoming increasingly important as defense budgets shrink and world economies realign themselves to an uncertain future. For existing military weapon systems, metallic corrosion damage costs an estimated $8 billion per year. One approach to reducing this cost is to develop a reliable method to detect and monitor corrosion in hidden metallic structure with the use of corrosion sensors which would give an early indication of corrosion without significant disassembly. This paper describes the current status of the development, analysis, and testing of a fiber optic corrosion sensor developed jointly by Boeing and Virginia Tech Fiber & Electro-Optics Research Center and sponsored by USAF Wright Laboratory, Materials Directorate, contract #F33615-93-C-5368. In the sensor which is being developed under this contract, the normal cladding is removed in the sensor region, and replaced with aluminum alloy and allowed to corrode on coupons representative of C/KC-135 body structure in an ASTM B117 salt spray chamber. In this approach, the optical signal out of the sensor is designed to increase as corrosion takes place. These test results to determine the correlation between sensor output and structural degradation due to corrosion are discussed.