Completed Materials & Manufacturing Engineering

Precision Detection for Delamination Defects in Fibre Reinforced Composites (DelFibre)

Funder InnovateUK (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation N.d.t. Consultants Limited
Funding £37K
Period Jun 2025 — Dec 2025

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A terahertz scanner will inspect aircraft wings and car panels for hidden internal damage without ever touching the surface. The problem is that current ultrasonic testing for delamination—where layers of fibre-reinforced composite separate—often misses defects near the surface and requires direct contact with the material. To compensate, inspectors turn to CT scanning, which is slow, complex, and expensive. This project pairs NDT Consultants with the National Physical Laboratory to characterise how terahertz waves interact with glass-fibre composites and to develop reliable data analysis methods. Terahertz waves can penetrate dielectric materials, map layered structures, and provide depth profiling without contact. If successful, the technique could replace or complement ultrasonic and CT inspection in aerospace, automotive, and structural engineering. That would mean faster, cheaper quality checks for components that already rely on composites for their light weight and strength. The impact is industrial rather than consumer-facing: safer aircraft, more efficient manufacturing, and fewer production delays. For the company, the result is a stronger position in the non-destructive testing market.

View original technical description
In this project NDT Consultants LTD (NDTC) will partner with NPL to carry out research characterization of delamination defects and analysis of data in Glass Fibre Re-enforced Polymer composites using terahertz (THz) imaging. The current most widely used method by the NDT industry to assess delamination defects in composites is ultrasonic. However, this method has drawbacks such as low accuracy in detecting near-surface delamination as well as the need for direct contact between the ultrasonic transducer and the inspected material. Because of this, the industry often uses additional NDT methods such as Computer Tomography (CT) to obtain more accurate data regarding delamination., which makes the inspection time longer and the NDT method complex to interpret and costly. THz waves offer several advantages for detecting delamination defects in composite materials. These advantages make THz non-destructive testing an effective method for inspecting aerospace, automotive, and structural composites. The key benefits of THz are: * Non-Destructive and Non-Contact Inspection * High Sensitivity to Layered Structures * Depth Profiling and Layered Imaging * Better Contrast for Dielectric Materials * Complementary to Other NDT Methods Success of this project will strengthen the position of NDTC in the market of NDT products and services and improve their competitiveness.

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Original classification

Grant for R&D

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