Is there no way to detect cracks or is it just prohibitively expensive to do so?
I know that metal fatigue is a known thing that airlines check for and when they went to carbon fiber they had to develop tools to detect fatigue/cracks.
I know that metal fatigue is a known thing that airlines check for and when they went to carbon fiber they had to develop tools to detect fatigue/cracks.
There are other ways to scan for defects, but I'm mostly familiar with ultrasound phased arrays. Other NDT methods are also hard to use in the field after manufacturing.
[0] I work in NDT (non destructive testing), but I'm not a physics engineer and (work further up the stack from the actual probes/scanners). So this is an approximation, and I might be wrong.
[1] This random link is pretty useful to get an idea I think, but I'll also ask around our inhouse scientists if I get the occasion today!
https://www.olympus-ims.com/en/ndt-tutorials/transducers/pha...
So I'm going to put it in the "theoretically possible but nobody will do it" category for now. ;)
So you either detect it before commissioning or it will eventually fail if there is a flaw.
It forms the basis of some magic tricks involving walking on or supporting things in water. (I say some, the rest are totally magic and you should enjoy them.)