Radiographic inspection of mechanical fasteners

A method for inspecting an installed fastener in a workpiece, the method comprising:

• generating scanning beams of electromagnetic radiation via a radiographic generator;
• directing the scanning beams of electromagnetic radiation toward the workpiece having the installed fastener;
• collecting a radiographic image of the workpiece including the installed fastener via a radiographic image sensor;
• and
• processing the radiographic image via one or more trained characterization models trained on radiographic images of defected and non-defected fasteners, including:
• localizing the installed fastener within the radiographic image;
• identifying a presence or absence of an internal material defect in the installed fastener;
• characterizing a quality of the installed fastener based on the presence or absence of the internal material defect;
• and
• generating an inspection report, via a computer device, that is indicative of the quality of the fastener, the inspection report including an annotated radiographic image identifying a location of the internal material defect within the installed fastener.

A computer device for automated inspection of a population of installed rivets, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium on which is written instructions, wherein the instructions are executable by the processor to cause the computer device to:
• receive x-ray images of the installed rivets from an x-ray sensor;
• process the x-ray images via one or more trained characterization models trained on radiographic images of defected and non-defected fasteners to thereby localize the installed rivets within the x-ray images;
• identify a presence or absence of an internal material defect in each of the installed rivets;
• characterize a quality of each of the installed rivets based on the presence or absence of the internal material defect;
• and
• generate an inspection report indicative of the quality of each of the installed rivets, the inspection report including a respective color-coded bounding boxes around each of the installed rivets, the color-coded bounding box forming a color-coded graphic of defected rivets and non-defected rivets.