Composite fuselage panel is the large size key part of wide-body airliner. It has a higher requirement for defect detection and nondestructive testing (NDT) efficiency. Ultrasonic phased array testing method can improve NDT efficiency and defect detection effect

in the early stage

it is necessary to validate the reliability of ultrasonic phased array to detect the defects according to the structural characteristics of the fuselage panel. According to the material and structure characteristics and defect detection requirements of wide-body fuselage panel

different specimens

reflecting characteristics of the panel were designed and prepared. Different artificial defects were embedded in the specimens. With ultrasonic phased array method

a series of testing parameter optimization experiments and defect detectability were carried out. The quantitative analysis was conducted to the detected defects

and the results were compared with those obtained by traditional ultrasonic automatic scanning technique

so as to validate the detectability of the developed ultrasonic phased array method. These studies provide a technical support for the application of ultrasonic phased array technique in NDT of large-scale composite fuselage panel.