Aerospace Castings Inspection Enters the Digital Age Published June 15, 2010 By Heyward Burnett Materials and Manufacturing WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- In a move heralding sizable savings of both money and time for the aerospace castings industry--and ultimately, the military--a government/industry collaboration is introducing digital radiography as a viable method for inspecting strategic and complex aerospace castings in accordance with DoD requirements. The milestone advance has prompted ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials) acceptance of the team's resultant digital radiography reference standards for steel and titanium castings, as well as the society's ensuing support towards the creation of industry-standard practices for executing the shift from X-ray film to digital capability. By addressing the historical lack of standard reference images and absence of universal implementation guidelines, the teamwork has effectively removed the major barriers to digital radiography usage and thus paved the way to a new and greatly improved methodology. Experts anticipate that adopting digital radiographic evaluation will realistically save up to $2 million per year over existing X-ray inspection methods, which traditionally have costly film, chemical, waste handling, and storage requirements. The digital format's substantial financial advantage is due primarily to its elimination of these demands, though some of this savings will be offset by the purchase of new equipment. The availability of the advanced capability is also expected to cut the inspection cycle time for structural castings in half--a full 50% reduction in this previously time-consuming process. Further, the conversion from film-based methods translates to improvements in the ease and reliability of inspection records storage and transportation. The original push for digital radiography surfaced in 2004 during a government/industry Aerospace Castings Team meeting. Though already practiced by some members of the aerospace industry, the technology was deemed unfit for widespread acceptance due to a lack of common reference standards for steel and Ti alloy castings. The subsequent effort to remedy this issue commenced with funding provided by the DoD Next-Generation Manufacturing Technology Initiative and the AFRL Metals Affordability Initiative and Advanced Manufacturing Propulsion Initiative. After first devising its approach, the Aerospace Castings Team began developing new standards under seed funding provided by NGMTI. Despite significant progress, the limited funding proved insufficient for completing this preliminary work. Consequently, AFRL's MAI and AMPI programs got involved, joining forces to supply additional funding via industry contract awarded in late 2008. To date, the jointly sponsored endeavor has generated digital ASTM-approved reference images for steel and Ti. These standard images became available for purchase as of March 2010. The program activity has also produced a draft document outlining aerospace-specific guidance for implementing a digital-radiography-based inspection process, and ASTM is currently working with AFRL's MAI/AMPI team to modify this text to include inspection procedures for other materials as well. The entire program--led by PCC Structurals, Inc.--is slated for completion by late 2010. This successful ongoing effort to facilitate improvements of mutual benefit to all involved parties highlights a worthwhile commitment between government and industry to collaborate in solving shared challenges.