Eddy Current Testing in Aviation & Aerospace: What It Finds, What It Misses, and What Governs It
What ET is actually used for in aviation & aerospace
Eddy current is aviation's surface method of choice — fastener hole inspection with rotating probes, surface cracks at radii, and conductivity sorting after fire or heat damage.
How ET works
Eddy current testing induces circulating currents in a conductive material and reads the impedance change a discontinuity causes. It needs no couplant and no contact, which makes it the fastest surface and near-surface method available — and, in tube form, the only practical way to screen thousands of heat-exchanger tubes inside a shutdown window.
What ET will not do
What ET will not do: examine non-conductive material, penetrate deeply (the effect is confined near the surface, more so as frequency rises), or produce results anyone can interpret without training — signal interpretation is the whole skill, and lift-off, edge effects and permeability variation all masquerade as indications.
The aviation & aerospace assets this applies to
Airframe structure and fastener rows, engine hardware — discs, blades, cases — landing gear, wheels, and the growing composite content on both structure and control surfaces.
The damage mechanisms driving the examination
Fatigue cracking at stress concentrations is the mechanism the entire inspection programme exists to catch, with corrosion in structure, disbonds in composite repairs, and thermal damage in hot sections.
What governs acceptance
NAS 410 or EN 4179 for personnel with a named responsible Level 3; Nadcap accrediting the process; FAA Part 145 governing the repair station; OEM maintenance manuals supplying acceptance criteria rather than a code. On the method side: ASME Section V Article 8 for tubing; ASTM E243 and E571 for specific product forms; aerospace surface examination runs under NAS 410 with OEM technique requirements. An examination that is technically sound but performed outside the governing regime is not an examination anyone will accept, which is why the code family matters as much as the technique.
How Atlantis delivers ET in this sector
Atlantis mobilises examination teams to your site under Atlantis procedures with ASNT Level III oversight — we do not claim a depot or laboratory in every market, and say so plainly. What you receive is the examination performed to a qualified procedure, findings evaluated against the acceptance criteria your contract names, and records structured to survive a client audit years later.
Eddy Current Testing services · ET training and certification · Aviation & Aerospace programme consulting · Aviation & Aerospace NDT training · scope a ET examination.
ET in other sectors
Refining · Petrochemical · LNG · Offshore · Pipeline · Marine & Shipbuilding.