About the project
The Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at the University of Southampton is offering PhD scholarships focused on using active thermography to inspect aerospace composites. The project aims to improve how defects are detected and analysed in aircraft materials, helping ensure safer and more efficient maintenance.
This PhD research will be based in the Computational Engineering and Design Group at our Boldrewood Innovation Campus which provides a collaborative environment with access to advanced facilities and resources.
The proposed research will be centered on non-destructive inspection methods, evaluating various active thermography techniques to find the most effective approach depending on the type of damage.
The researcher will build and expand a database of composite defects, assessing their geometry using thermographic methods.
To enhance defect detection and analysis, the researcher will also test image processing tools such as:
- differentiated absolute contrast (DAC)
- thermographic signal reconstruction (TSR)
- principal component thermography (PCT)
All collected images will contribute to a growing database for machine learning applications, aiming to automatically and accurately identify defects. This will support fast and reliable ‘fly/no-fly’ decisions and provide valuable insights for aircraft maintenance, ultimately advancing the diagnostics and monitoring of aerospace structures.
