Assessment of Hail Damage on Aircrafts

The impact of hail damage on the aerodynamics of an airplane is a complex factor to assess; however, it is vital—literally!—to be able to perform the assessment very accurately. The shape and the size of the defects vary with the intensity of every hail storm. Therefore, the most common way of analyzing the level of damage is through the geometric measurement (length, width and depth) of each dent found on a given service plane. There is also a need on the production line for geometry control. With their passengers’ safety as their main concern, air carriers need to find solutions that are accurate, efficient and auditable.

With the integrity assessment power offered by 3D scanning, aerospace engineering teams can acquire large amounts of high accuracy data to conduct in-depth assessment of hail damage. 3D scanning offers key benefits, such as high accuracy, repeatability, traceability, portability and ease of use. What's more, it enables users to detect and measure defects according to configurable criteria as well as export the data in Excel, PDF and other formats. Creaform’s NDT solutions combine with aviation MRO software can contribute to reducing aircraft damage assessment times by 80% and decrease the risk of human errors.