United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

A Neal Watkins

Jeffrey D Jordan

Gary Dale

David Banaszak

A method and device for visually detecting crack length of a temperature sensitive paint coated test structure during excitation of the test structure. The method and device of the invention capitalizes on surface temperature changes of the test structure as structural fatigue increases. Test structure surface temperature changes are realized in corresponding fluorescence intensity changes in the temperature sensitive paint and recorded with a CCD camera. Improvements over conventional structural fatigue systems include the ability to detect fatigue during flight testing, to record fatigue without stopping the electrodynamic excitation and the ability to detect crack onset and crack length resulting in more accurate cycles-to-fatigue analysis.

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Hampton, VA, United States of America

A Neal Watkins