MAI PCC-1: "Use of Digital Radiography for Final Part Acceptance of Aerospace Castings"

The use of digital media is a process improvement over the current film based radiography and holds the promise of faster cycle times, improved acquisition costs, being environmentally friendly, and is pervasive across the entire industrial supply base.  Despite these benefits, the implementation of digital radiography has been slow due to many barriers and differences amongst the aerospace industry.  A 3-year program was funded through the Air Force and the Metals Affordability Initiative to accelerate the introduction of digital radiography into the aerospace industry for castings.  Team members of this program included: the Air Force, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, GE-Aviation, Honeywell, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce, Howmet, PCC, GE Inspection Technologies, Fuji, North Star Imaging, VJ Technologies, and Yxlon.  The program completed in January 2012 and the project team was successful in removing the following barriers to implementation:

• Developed ASTM approved digital reference images for both Steel (E-2660) and Titanium (E-2669), leveraging previous work from the Next Generation Manufacturing Technology Initiative
• Created common language across ASTM documents for digital reference images in steel, titanium, and aluminum
• Created and executed training programs for 52 Level II and 52 Level III radiographers
• Proved feasibility of the technology by creating 38 customer approved part techniques across multiple alloys and system types
• Created a Guidelines Document, which will be used as an industry specification until governing specifications are issued
• Worked with OEM’s to produce OEM specific specifications with common requirements
• Guidelines Document is now an ASTM work item currently being balloted to become an industry specification 

These technical barriers have allowed for successful implementation of digital radiography into production of aerospace castings.  Active conversion is currently taking place at both Howmet and PCC.  Equipment has been purchased and multiple components are currently being inspected in production.