Ultrasonic inspection methods

Insofar as Ultrasonic Array probes have come onto the market from several years and are now moving from prototype stages into industrial tools for on-site inspections, methods and tools for acoustic characterization is becoming a real concern. Furthermore, the lack of standards, either national or European, enhances the needs for guidelines proposal. 

In wide sectors of industry there is a growing need of inspection methods which go without liquid coupling media. The excitation of bulk and surface waves by means of air-coupled ultrasonic probes is therefore an attractive tool for NDE. This is tme e.g. for the rapid scanning of large composite structures in the aerospace industry [1]. In other cases, the use of liquid couplants is prohibitive like the thickness measurement of powder layers. 

The Dow Freeport in-service inspection procedures are similar to those reported earlier in this chapter. The Dow out-of-service (internal) inspection includes ultrasonic thickness measurements at all benchmark locations. Other test methods include shear wave ultrasonics, eddy current, and radiography. Engineers use ultrasonic thickness readings to project the remaining useful life of the vessel and to determine when the next internal inspection should be scheduled. 

In general, the most widely used field technologies for inspection are ultrasonic thickness measurement, while for online methods they are corrosion test specimens, electrical resistance, and linear polarization probes. Both of the inspection methods and the first two online methods measure metal loss. The last method measures corrosion rate, but only in a sufficiendy conductive process environment, normally water. 

Measurement sensitivity divides the metal loss methods. Ultrasonics and radiography are usually considered as inspection methods. Typically, ultrasonics has a measurement resolution of around 50 pm (0.002 in.), and radiography 250 p,m (0.010 in.). Consequently, these types of measurements are typically made annually. Corrosion test specimens (coupons) assess metal loss typically over a one to three month interval. Electrical resistance probes, as an automatic coupon, assess metal loss typically over a few hours to a few weeks. 

Safety-critical components are frequently inspected by ultrasonic or X-ray testing. If no indication of a crack is found (otherwise the component is scrapped), the detection limit of the testing method is assumed as the size of the largest crack. The component is dimensioned to ensure that even with a crack of this size the safety margin to the failure hmit in figure 5.10 is sufficient. 

Fuel storage drum. Major welds of this 5.40 m high drum, made of A 42 grade steel, selected for their mechanical load and/or geometry, were inspected. An ultrasonic method was used. The inspection showed no significant faults. 

However, it appears that none of the non-destructive tests currently employed directly correlate with any critical failure property. Most industrial test techniques such as through-transmission and pulse-echo ultrasonics, sonic vibration techniques. X-ray radiography, thermal inspection methods, holography, liquid penetrants, etc. basically attempt to find defects in the joint. Such defects may arise from several sources. Some defects arise from porosity, cracks or voids in the adhesive layer or at the interface and are typically filled with air they will simply be referred to as voids in the present discussions. However, during the service life of the joint such voids may fill with water which makes them far more difficult to detect since, for example, water has a much higher acoustic, impedance than air. Also, zero-volume voids, or debonds, may occur when the adhesive and substrate are in contact but no... 

Nondestructive testing. An ultrasonic inspection technique is available for the detection of flaws in plate, piping, and tubing. The water-immersed pulse-echo ultrasound equipment has been adapted to highspeed use. Eddy-current, dye-penetrant, and radiogr.aphic inspection methods are also used as required. The inspected materials have included Inconel, austenitic stainless steel, INOR-8, and the Hastelloy and other nickel-molybdenum-ba.se alloys. 

The suggested method is appropriately implemented at the practice. The cost and working hours of unit measurement of it is less than of any alternative method of destructive test and with respect to the authenticity inspection of Stress-Deformation the given method is inferior only to destructive testing. The method was successfully implemented while evaluation of service life of main pipe-lines sections and pressure vessels as well. Data of method and instrument are used as official data equally with ultrasonic, radiation, magnetic particles methods, adding them by the previously non available information about " fatigue " metalwork structure. 

For the repetitive inspections the required hydrotest can only be performed for a limited number of the small cylinders, and even then the drums have to be removed from the line and the cylinders will be supported in defined distances for the weight of the water and the pressurisation. For the new and long cylinders even this is impossible, because they loose due to the additional weight of the water and the over-pressurisation their roundness and balances. Therefore the law in the most countries within and outside of the EU accept as a replacement of the hydrotest an additional application of different NDT methods, which were often done by an ultrasonic measurement of the wall thickness of the cylindrical part and a MT of the flat covers. 

There have been numerous efforts to inspect specimens by ultrasonic reflectivity (or pulse-echo) measurements. In these inspections ultrasonic reflectivity is often used to observe changes in the acoustical impedance, and from this observation to localize defects in the specimen. However, the term defect is related to any discontinuity within the specimen and, consequently, more information is needed than only ultrasonic reflectivity to define the discontinuity as a defect. This information may be provided by three-dimensional ultrasonic reflection tomography and a priori knowledge about the specimen (e.g., the specimen fabrication process, its design, the intended purpose and the material). A more comprehensive review of defect characterization and related nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods is provided elsewhere [1]. 

Projection radiography is widely used for pipe inspection and corrosion monitoring. Film digitisation allows a direct access to the local density variations by computer software. Following to a calibration step an interactive estimation of local wall thickness change based on the obtained density variation is possible. The theoretical model is discussed, the limitations of the application range are shown and examples of the practical use are given. The accuracy of this method is compared to results from wall thickness measurements with ultrasonic devices. 

In this paper, we have exposed a solution to improve the resolution in Low Frequency Ultrasonic Tomography. Since the basic principle of ultrasonic reflection tomography prohibits the inspection of objects with strong contrast and large extension, we turn down the frequency of the transducer, in order to increase the penetration length of the wave and the validity of the method. But this is done at the expense of resolution. 

Studying modem approaches for such schemes, one can see that knowledge of operational conditions and potential degradation mechanisms play a prominent role. Surprisingly, the role of NDT is often limited to tlie use of conventional methods such as ultrasonic wall thickness measurements, ultrasonic inspection, radiography, and last but not least visual inspection. 

---