THz Imaging as a Method to Detect Defects of Aeronautical Coatings

Ice adhesion over critical aircraft surfaces is a serious potential hazard that runs the risk of causing accidents. To face this issue, the design and diagnostics of new multifunctional coatings with icephobic and aesthetical properties are demanded. In particular, diagnostic tools, capable of characterizing coating surface finishing and its defects, are needed. In this paper, terahertz (THz) imaging is considered as a high-resolution diagnostic tool useful for contactless surveys providing information on surface defects and material inner structure. Therefore, two composite specimens, one covered by a classical commercial livery coating and the other one by a new multifunctional coating with icephobic properties, are investigated by THz surveys carried out in normal environmental conditions of pressure and temperature. The results, obtained by processing the raw data properly, corroborate that THz imaging allows us to detect variations of the coating thickness, to localize hidden anomalies as well as to characterize surface defects at millimetric scale.