Application of signal processing techniques to ultrasonic ToFD testing of austenitic welds

The desired properties of austenitic steels lead to their numerous applications in many industries. Welded austenitic materials have columnar grains, anisotropic elastic properties, and a heterogeneous structure. These properties are controlled by both the procedure and parameters of welding. The complex structure of austenitic welds can distort and scatter the ultrasonic beams. In ultrasonic testing of austenitic welds, this situation can lead to low signal-to-noise ratio and make the interpretation of results quite difficult. In this paper, the relatively new ultrasonic technique of time-of-flight diffraction (ToFD) is used for inspection of austenitic welds. Special signal processing techniques are implemented in order to improve the low signal-to-noise ratio of ultrasonic signals and make the interpretation of results easier

تحلیل اجزای محدود آزمون غیرمخرب دمانگاری ارتعاشی به کمک فرکانس تشدید عیب

Vibro-thermography is an emerging and promising technique that uses ultrasonic elastic waves as an excitation source to detect and evaluate surface and subsurface defects. Friction of the edges of defects, viscoelastic behavior and non-linear vibrations of the defect region are the main sources of heating and the temperature gradient that shows up synchronously with variations of non-linear elastic energy. The temperature gradient in the defect region can be imaged by an infrared camera in order to estimate the location and size of the defects. In this paper, the vibro-thermography is simulated in COMSOL Multiphysics software. Lamb waves are used to excite an aluminum plate containing a flat-bottomed hole. First, the resonance frequency of the defect is found by means of the theory of vibrations and also by finite element method (FEM). An algorithm that incorporates frequency analysis as a function of out-of-plane displacements is used to verify this frequency and the results are compared with the eigenfrequency analysis results. The agreement observed between the theoretical and numerical models is found to be very good. The plate is then excited by an amplitude modulated sine-burst at the local defect resonance (LDR) frequency and a frequency related to the thermal penetration depth. Thermal image processing is carried out on the thermal waves to obtain their amplitude and phase images. By considering a four-point algorithm, the location, size and geometry of the defect is estimated with good accuracy

Non-destructive evaluation of kissing bonds using local defect resonance (LDR) spectroscopy : a simulation study

With the growing demand from industry to optimize and further develop existing Non-Destructive Testing & Evaluation (NDT&E) techniques or new methods to detect and characterize incipient damage with high sensitivity and increased quality, ample efforts have been devoted to better understand the typical behavior of kissing bonds, such as delaminations and cracks. Recently, it has been shown experimentally that the nonlinear ultrasonic response of kissing bonds could be enhanced by using Local Defect Resonance (LDR) spectroscopy. LDR spectroscopy is an efficient NDT technique that takes advantage of the characteristic fre- quencies of the defect (defect resonances) in order to provide maximum acoustic wave-defect interaction. In fact, for nonlinear methodologies, the ultrasonic excitation of the sample should occur at either multiples or integer ratios of the characteristic defect resonance frequencies, in order to obtain the highest signal-to-noise response in the nonlinear LDR spectroscopy. In this paper, the potential of using LDR spectroscopy for the detection, localization and characterization of kissing bonds is illustrated using a 3D simulation code for elastic wave propagation in materials containing closed but dynamically active cracks or delaminations. Using the model, we are able to define an appropriate method, based on the Scaling Subtraction Method (SSM), to determine the local defect resonance frequencies of a delamination in a composite plate and to illustrate an increase in defect nonlinearity due to LDR. The simulation results will help us to obtain a better understanding of the concept of LDR and to assist in the further design and testing of LDR spectroscopy for the detection, localization and characterization of kissing bonds

Visualization of delaminations in composite structures using a baseline-free, sparse array imaging technique based on nonlinear Lamb wave propagation

Environmental factors such as temperature and humidity influence the efficacy of defect imaging procedures based on the identification of changes between an intact state and the current state of a sample/component/structure in the presence of a defect. In this paper, we focus on the Reconstruction Algorithm for Probabilistic Inspection of Damage (RAPID) and propose a nonlinear Lamb wave version of RAPID to visualize a delamination in a composite structure without having to know anything about the intact state, i.e. a baseline free RAPID. Once the optimal frequency selection of Lamb waves in a pitch-catch configuration mode is performed, low and high excitation amplitude signal responses within a sparse array at that frequency are evaluated along each transducer-receiver path by analyzing a set of damage sensitive parameters: the correlation coefficient, the energy of the scaling subtracted signal, and the and the third harmonic ratio. Processing of this information leads to a corresponding probabilistic damage map of the area within the sparse array. The obtained results from a validation experiment demonstrate the capability of this nonlinear variant of RAPID for the identification of a delamination in a composite structur

Non-destructive evaluation of kissing bonds using local defect resonance (LDR) spectroscopy : a simulation study

With the growing demand from industry to optimize and further develop existing Non-Destructive Testing & Evaluation (NDT&E) techniques or new methods to detect and characterize incipient damage with high sensitivity and increased quality, ample efforts have been devoted to better understand the typical behavior of kissing bonds, such as delaminations and cracks. Recently, it has been shown experimentally that the nonlinear ultrasonic response of kissing bonds could be enhanced by using Local Defect Resonance (LDR) spectroscopy. LDR spectroscopy is an efficient NDT technique that takes advantage of the characteristic fre- quencies of the defect (defect resonances) in order to provide maximum acoustic wave-defect interaction. In fact, for nonlinear methodologies, the ultrasonic excitation of the sample should occur at either multiples or integer ratios of the characteristic defect resonance frequencies, in order to obtain the highest signal-to-noise response in the nonlinear LDR spectroscopy. In this paper, the potential of using LDR spectroscopy for the detection, localization and characterization of kissing bonds is illustrated using a 3D simulation code for elastic wave propagation in materials containing closed but dynamically active cracks or delaminations. Using the model, we are able to define an appropriate method, based on the Scaling Subtraction Method (SSM), to determine the local defect resonance frequencies of a delamination in a composite plate and to illustrate an increase in defect nonlinearity due to LDR. The simulation results will help us to obtain a better understanding of the concept of LDR and to assist in the further design and testing of LDR spectroscopy for the detection, localization and characterization of kissing bonds

Nondestructive ultrasonic inspection of friction stir welds

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a relatively new solid-state welding procedure developed at The Welding Institute (TWI-UK) and the technique is widely employed for welding aluminum alloys in various applications. In order to examine the quality of the welds and to detect a variety of welding flaws such as wormholes and root-flaws, it is required to develop a methodical inspection technique that can be used for the identification and localization of such defects. The most prevalent and risky defect in this type of welding is the barely visible root flaw with a length varying from 100-700 μm. Due to the extreme characteristics of the flaw, off-the-shelf ultrasonic weld inspection methods are not always able to readily detect this type of minute defect feature. Here, we propose a novel approach to characterize root flaws using an oblique incident ultrasonic C-scan backscattering analysis. The implementation consists of an immersion ultrasonic testing method in pulse echo (i.e. backscatter) mode with a 3.5 MHz transducer, and makes use of an empirical procedure to engender of a shear wave dominated excitation at the root surface, and to properly gate the received signal for root flaw examination. By scanning the surface above the welded component, a C-scan image displaying the backscatter response from the root surface of the nugget zone can be obtained which allows a simple interpretation of the root flaw status of the weld

Nondestructive ultrasonic inspection of friction stir welds

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a relatively new solid-state welding procedure developed at The Welding Institute (TWI-UK) and the technique is widely employed for welding aluminum alloys in various applications. In order to examine the quality of the welds and to detect a variety of welding flaws such as wormholes and root-flaws, it is required to develop a methodical inspection technique that can be used for the identification and localization of such defects. The most prevalent and risky defect in this type of welding is the barely visible root flaw with a length varying from 100-700 μm. Due to the extreme characteristics of the flaw, off-the-shelf ultrasonic weld inspection methods are not always able to readily detect this type of minute defect feature. Here, we propose a novel approach to characterize root flaws using an oblique incident ultrasonic C-scan backscattering analysis. The implementation consists of an immersion ultrasonic testing method in pulse echo (i.e. backscatter) mode with a 3.5 MHz transducer, and makes use of an empirical procedure to engender of a shear wave dominated excitation at the root surface, and to properly gate the received signal for root flaw examination. By scanning the surface above the welded component, a C-scan image displaying the backscatter response from the root surface of the nugget zone can be obtained which allows a simple interpretation of the root flaw status of the weld

Guided wave based-occupancy grid robotic mapping

Asset inspection of large structures such as storage tanks in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry is challenging, either requiring labour-intensive manual measurements or using robotic deployment to make the measurements. Current robotic systems employ point-by-point scanning, which is time-consuming. Using guided waves for such inspections is attractive as they provide a mechanism for monitoring the inaccessible areas and simultaneously providing structural location data to speed up the inspection process. In this research, shear horizontal (SH) guided waves generated by electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) are used to screen a large area using a crawler. EMATs with 22 mm wavelength are used to generate the first two SH modes: a non-dispersive SH0 and highly dispersive SH1 on a 10 mm thick steel sample. Previously, we have demonstrated the feasibility of guided wave-based occupancy grid mapping (GW-OGM) for mapping a structure's edges. In this work, the GW-OGM technique is generalised to identify and estimate the location of a flat bottom hole in a pitch-catch mode. The simulation and empirical data demonstrate that the location of damage can be identified as the robot navigates on the component, with full coverage. Moreover, the simulated data are in good agreement with the experimental results on the generation of SH wave modes

Golay-based total focusing method using a high-frequency, lead-free, flexible ultrasonic array to improve industrial inspections

High frequency (>15 MHz) ultrasound arrays have attracted considerable interest in recent years due to their ability to provide images with enhanced spatial resolution, offering higher sensitivity to smaller defects in materials and structures. Defects can be detected at earlier growth stages as compared to lower frequency counterparts. Conversely, high-frequency sound waves have limited penetration depth that can hinder the inspection of thicker components. Moreover, research into lead-free alternatives to lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is prominent due to the European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulation. Achieving optimal ultrasound imaging with lead-free materials remains a persistent challenge, given the importance of transducer sensitivity. Here, an advanced approach combining a high-frequency, lead-free, flexible ultrasonic array and Golay-coded excitation to address the limitation in penetration depth in ultrasound imaging, particularly of samples with non-planar surface geometries, is presented. This study employed a commercial 20 MHz 64 element 1 mm pitch lead-free flexible linear ultrasonic array, developed by Novosound Ltd, using Golay-coded excitation to improve the penetration depth and exploit the flexibility for operation on both planar and non-planar components. Golay complementary sequences were designed and employed to excite the array. Pulse compression was realised through the application of a matched filter. A signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvement verification study was conducted with the array deployed on a 20 mm thick planar aluminium sample. As anticipated, an increase in SNR was observed as the length of the Golay codes increased, matching the theoretical 3 dB improvement between successive length doubling. Furthermore, the appropriate Golay code length is contingent on the specific demands of the application with respect to acceptable SNR and minimisation of the dead zone to improve near surface inspection capability. The array offers the versatility to adapt to complex surface profiles. A curved test specimen with known defects was next explored. Total focusing method (TFM) images of the sample for both pulse and Golay excitations were obtained and compared. The Golay-based TFM outperformed the standard pulse-based TFM, resulting in an improved imaging penetration depth. The proposed approach, which integrates a RoHS-compliant, flexible array with Golay-coded excitation, has the potential to improve the quality of industrial inspections in terms of efficiency, accuracy, and reliability

Crawler-based automated non-contact ultrasonic inspection of large structural assets

This paper presents an update on the progress of developing a crawler-based automated non-contact ultrasonic inspection system for the evaluation of large structural assets. The system presented is a significant improvement on current robotic NDT crawlers and aims to greatly reduce the time of inspection by creating an internal feature map of the subject in a Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping (SLAM) style method instead of using a lawnmower scanning style where all areas are scanned regardless if they contain features or are featureless. This map will be generated through rapid automated path planning and scanning and will show the location of potential areas of interest, where then, the appropriate method of inspection can be used for a high detailed evaluation. Current and ongoing work presented is as follows; the use of guided waves as the sensory input of an occupancy grid map; evaluating guided wave modes to find the mode most appropriate for this system; minimum thickness estimation using machine learning; improving the transducer setup using a unidirectional transmitter