182 research outputs found
Detection of Surface Cracks in Metals using Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Nondestructive Testing Techniques-A Review
Integrity Assessment of Metallic Structures Requires Inspection Tools Capable of Detecting and Evaluating Cracks Reliably. to This End, Many Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation (NDT&E) Methods Have Been Developed and Applied Successfully in the Past. Detection of Fatigue Cracks with Widths Less Than 5 Μ M using Noncontact Microwave-Based Inspection Methods Was Demonstrated in the 1970s. Since their Introduction, These Methods Have Evolved Considerably Toward Enhancing the Detection Sensitivity and Resolution. Undertaking Key Application Challenges Has Attracted Considerable Attention in the Past Three Decades and Led to the Development of the Near-Field Techniques for Crack Detection. to Address a Need that Cannot Be Fulfilled by Other NDT&E Modalities, Innovative Noncontact Microwave and Millimeter-Wave NDT&E Methods Were Devised Recently to Detect Cracks of Arbitrary Orientations under Thick Dielectric Structures. While the Reported Methods Share the Same Underlying Physical Principles, They Vary Considerably in Terms of the Devised Probes/sensors and the Application Procedure. Consequently, their Sensitivity and Resolution as Well as their Limitations Vary. This Article Reviews the Various Crack Detection Methods Developed To-Date and Compares Them in Terms of Common Performance Metrics. This Comprehensive Review is Augmented with Experimental Comparisons and Benchmarking Aimed to Benefit NDT&E Practitioners and Researchers Alike
Diameter Estimation of Cylindrical Metal Bar Using Wideband Dual-Polarized Ground-Penetrating Radar
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) has been an effective technology for locating
metal bars in civil engineering structures. However, the accurate sizing of
subsurface metal bars of small diameters remains a challenging problem for the
existing reflection pattern-based method due to the limited resolution of GPR.
To address the issue, we propose a reflection power-based method by exploring
the relationship between the bar diameter and the maximum power of the bar
reflected signal obtained by a wideband dual-polarized GPR, which circumvents
the resolution limit of the existing pattern-based method. In the proposed
method, the theoretical relationship between the bar diameter and the power
ratio of the bar reflected signals acquired by perpendicular and parallel
polarized antennas is established via the inherent scattering width of the
metal bar and the wideband spectrum of the bar reflected signal. Based on the
theoretical relationship, the bar diameter can be estimated using the obtained
power ratio in a GPR survey. Simulations and experiments have been conducted
with different GPR frequency spectra, subsurface mediums, and metal bars of
various diameters and depths to demonstrate the efficacy of the method.
Experimental results show that the method achieves high sizing accuracy with
errors of less than 10% in different scenarios. With its simple operation and
high accuracy, the method can be implemented in real-time in situ examination
of subsurface metal bars.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures, will be published at IEEE Transactions on
Instrumentation and Measuremen
Microwave Materials Characterization and Imaging for Structural Health Monitoring
The relatively small wavelengths and large bandwidths associated with microwave signals make them great candidates for inspection of construction materials and structures, and for materials characterization and imaging. Signals at these frequencies readily penetrate inside of dielectric materials and composites and interact with their materials characteristics and inner structures. Water molecule is dipolar and possesses a relatively large complex dielectric constant, which is also highly sensitive to the presence of ions that increase its electrical conductivity. Consequently, chemical and physical changes in construction materials affect their complex dielectric constant. This can be measured, and through analytical and empirical dielectric mixing formulae, correlated to those changes. Examples of applications would be, presence of delamination in a bridge deck and pavement, permeation of moisture behind retaining walls or corrosion of reinforcing steel bars which can be imaged with microwave techniques. One of the critical trade-off issues is between the microwave signal penetration into concrete vs. frequency of operation. Dielectric of concrete, particularly when moist, has a relatively high loss factor. As such, lower microwave frequencies are suitable to achieve reasonable penetration. Image resolution degrades as a function of decrease in operating frequency, therefore, a balance must be reached when using these techniques for imaging cement-based materials. In this webinar, issues related to concrete materials property evaluation and high-resolution imaging will be discussed, and examples will be provided
Fibre-meshed Textile Electromagnetic Structures
This thesis investigated novel textile electromagnetic structures fabricated by a commercial computerized knitting machine. Different electronics such as elliptical waveguides, slotted waveguide antennas (SWA) and frequency selective surfaces (FSS) working at microwave band had been realized with fully textile materials. Knitted polyester was used as a dielectric and silver embedded yarn was knitted to create conducting patterns. Most of the textile electromagnetic structures in this thesis were the first time proposed to the public. Their performances were studied in both simulation and measurement
Microwave NDT&E using open-ended waveguide probe for multilayered structures
Ph. D. Thesis.Microwave NDT&E has been proved to be suitable for inspecting of dielectric structures due
to low attenuation in dielectric materials and free-space. However, the microwave responses
from multilayered structures are complex as an interrogation of scattering electromagnetic
waves among the layers and defects. In many practical applications, electromagnetic analysis
based on analytic- and forward structural models cannot be generalised since the defect shape
and properties are usually unknown and hidden beneath the surface layer.
This research proposes the design and implementation of microwave NDT&E system for
inspection of multilayered structures. Standard microwave open-ended rectangular waveguides
in X, Ku and K bands (frequency range between 8-26.5 GHz) and vector network analyser
(VNA) generating sweep frequency of wideband monochromatic waves have been used to
obtain reflection coefficient responses over three types of challenging multilayered samples: (1)
corrosion progression under coating, (2) woven carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) with
impact damages, and (3) thermal coated glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) pipe with inner
flat-bottom holes. The obtained data are analysed by the selected feature extraction method
extracting informative features and verify with the sample parameters (defect parameters). In
addition, visualisation methods are utilised to improve the presentation of the defects and
material structures resulting in a better interpretation for quantitative evaluation.
The contributions of this project are summarised as follows: (1) implementation of microwave
NDT&E scanning system using open-ended waveguide with the highest resolution of 0.1mm x
0.1 mm, based on the NDT applications for the three aforementioned samples; (2) corrosion
stages of steel corrosion under coating have been successfully characterised by the principal
component analysis (PCA) method; (3) A frequency selective based PCA feature has been used
to visualise the impact damage at different impact energies with elimination of woven texture
influences; (4) PCA and SAR (synthetic aperture radar) tomography together with time-offlight extraction, have been used for detection and quantitative evaluation of flat-bottom hole
defects (i.e., location, size and depth).
The results conclude that the proposed microwave NDT&E system can be used for detection
and evaluation of multilayered structures, which its major contributions are follows.
(1) The early stages (0-12month) of steel corrosion undercoating has been successfully
characterised by mean of spectral responses from microwave opened rectangular
waveguide probe and PCA.
(2) The detection of low energy impact damages on CFRP as low as 4 Joules has been
archived with microwave opened rectangular waveguide probe raster scan together with
SAR imaging and PCA for feature extraction methods.
(3) The inner flat-bottom holes beneath the thermal coated GFRP up to 11.5 mm depth has
been successfully quantitative evaluated by open-ended waveguide raster scan using
PCA and 3-D reconstruction based on SAR tomography techniques. The evaluation
includes location, sizing and depth.
Nevertheless, the major downside of feature quantities extracted from statistically based
methods such as PCA, is it intensely relies on the correlation of the input dataset, and thus
hardly link them with the physical parameters of the test sample, in particular, the complex
composite architectures. Therefore, there are still challenges of feature extraction and
quantitative evaluation to accurately determine the essential parameters from the samples. This
can be achieved by a future investigation of multiple features fusion and complementary
features.Ministry of Science and Technology of Royal Thai Government
and Office of Educational Affairs, the Royal Thai Embass
Radio frequency non-destructive testing and evaluation of defects under insulation
PhD ThesisThe use of insulation such as paint coatings has grown rapidly over the past decades. However, defects and corrosion under insulation (CUI) still present challenges for current non-destructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) techniques. One of such challenges is the large lift-off introduced by thick insulation layer. Inaccessibility due to insulation leads corrosion and defects to be undetected, which can lead to catastrophic failure. Furthermore, lift-off effects due to the insulation layers reduce the sensitivities. The limitations of existing NDT&E techniques heighten the need for novel approaches to the characterisation of corrosion and defects under insulation.
This research project is conducted in collaboration with International Paint®, and a radio frequency non-destructive evaluation for monitoring structural condition is proposed. High frequency (HF) passive RFID in conjunction with microwave NDT is proposed for monitoring and imaging under insulation. The small-size, battery-free and cost-efficient nature of RFID makes it attractive for long-term condition monitoring. To overcome the limitations of RFID-based sensing system such as effective monitoring area and lift-off tolerance, microwave NDT is proposed for the imaging of larger areas under thick insulation layers. Experimental studies are carried out in conjunction with specially designed mild steel sample sets to demonstrate the detection capabilities of the proposed systems.
The contributions of this research can be summarised as follows. Corrosion detection using HF passive RFID-based sensing and microwave NDT is demonstrated in experimental feasibility studies considering variance in surface roughness, conductivity and permeability. The lift-off effects introduced by insulation layers are reduced by applying feature extraction with principal component analysis and non-negative matrix factorisation. The problem of thick insulation layers is overcome by employing a linear sweep frequency with PCA to improve the sensitivity and resolution of microwave NDT-based imaging. Finally, the merits of microwave NDT are identified for imaging defects under thick insulation in a realistic test scenario. In conclusion, HF passive RFID can be adapted for long term corrosion monitoring of steel under insulation, but sensing area and lift-off tolerance are limited. In contrast, the microwave NDT&E has shown greater potential and capability for monitoring corrosion and defects under insulation
Index to 1985 NASA Tech Briefs, volume 10, numbers 1-4
Short announcements of new technology derived from the R&D activities of NASA are presented. These briefs emphasize information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines and are issued to encourage commercial application. This index for 1985 Tech Briefs contains abstracts and four indexes: subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief Number. The following areas are covered: electronic components and circuits, electronic systems, physical sciences, materials, life sciences, mechanics, machinery, fabrication technology, and mathematics and information sciences
Cumulative index to NASA Tech Briefs, 1986-1990, volumes 10-14
Tech Briefs are short announcements of new technology derived from the R&D activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These briefs emphasize information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines and are issued to encourage commercial application. This cumulative index of Tech Briefs contains abstracts and four indexes (subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief number) and covers the period 1986 to 1990. The abstract section is organized by the following subject categories: electronic components and circuits, electronic systems, physical sciences, materials, computer programs, life sciences, mechanics, machinery, fabrication technology, and mathematics and information sciences
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