Ultrasonic Testing

Portable Instruments
Industrial inspection systems
Air-coupled Testing
Transducers

Ultrasonic testing - overview

Ultrasonic non-destructive testing (UT) is commonly used for flaw detection in materials. Ultrasound uses
the transmission of high-frequency sound waves in a material to detect a discontinuity or to locate
changes in material properties.

DIO1000

Industrial system DIO2000

Ultrasonic Inspection is a very useful and versatile NDT method. Some of the advantages of ultrasonic
inspection that are often cited include:

It is sensitive to both surface and subsurface discontinuities.

The depth of penetration for flaw detection or measurement is superior to other NDT methods.
Only single-sided access is needed when the pulse-echo technique is used.
It is highly accurate in determining reflector position and estimating size and shape.
Minimal part preparation is required.
Electronic equipment provides instantaneous results.
Detailed images can be produced with automated systems.
It has other uses, such as thickness measurement, in addition to flaw detection.

The Starmans electronic company is mainly focused on development and construction of ultrasonic
systems used for material testing. Our constructed systems can be used for material thickness
measurement as well as flaw detection. All our systems have implemented the special algorithms which
improve the sensitivity and make our systems more accurate.

Portable Instruments
DEFECTOBOOK DIO1000
DEFECTOBOOK DIO1000 is the newsest instrument fully developed and designed by Starmans
electronics Ltd. company. This ultrasonic device is a suitable compromise between high-end ultrasonic
testing and dimensions (often limited in industrial applications). The DEFECTOBOOK DIO1000 implies
both conventional ultrasonic and EMAT generators for contact
and non-contact ultrasonic testing.

Main technical specification:

Display: Color TFT sunlight, 1024 pixels (W) X 768 pixels (H)
Gain control: 110 dB Max and reference gain control level
sensitivity feature with 6 dB, 1 dB, 0.5 dB and 0.1 dB selectable
steps
Auto Transducer Calibration: Automated calibration of
transducer, zero offset and/or velocity
Reject: 0% to 80% of full scale in 1% increments
Material Velocity: From 100 to 15240 m/s in steel
Range: Standard 1 mm to 60,000 mm
Pulser Type, User Selectable: Tunable square wave, negative spike excitation, burst
Rectification: Full Wave, Half Wave Positive or Negative, and rectified RF settings
Analog Bandwidth: 0.5 MHz to 30 MHz at

3 dB

Filters: Broadband, Narrowband, or Custom Selectable Low and High Pass Filters
2.25 MHz, 4 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz
Operating Temperature: -10 C to 50 C

1 MHz, 2 MHz,

Storage Temperature: -40C to 70C

Power Requirements: AC Mains: 100-120 VAC, 200-240 VAC, 50-60 Hz

Battery: Built-in and external rechargeable LiIon battery pack rated at 3.6 V at 16 Ah
USB Communications Port: Hi-speed interfacing with PC
Communications ports:

RS232
Ethernet
Wireles Ethernet
Bluetooth

Memory: 4 up to 16GB
Bscan input: Encoder, A,B

pulses, start, TTL 5V, Encoder supply switchable 5V

37 mm
Display dimensions: 99130 mm
Dimensions: 224 188

DIO 1000 versions (in terms of connectivity):

TYPE

RS232

USB

DIO 1000 LC

DIO1000 High

DIO1000 EMAT

Ethernet

Wifi

Encoder input for B?scan

X
X

Industrial Inspection systems

DIO-2000 Hardware
System DIO-2000 Complete Solution for Industrial Measuring System

DIO
2000
General
The systems ultrasonic channels are designed as independent electronic plug-in
units (modules) with their own microprocessor control and signal processing. The
plug-in units (size 100 x 160 mm) are located in frames. Every frame may contain 16
units. Four frames may be assembled in a 19" rack with power supply built-in. In this
way
the
maximal
system
range
consists
of
64
channels.

Features

The control system and the data evaluating system of DIO 2000 consists of a
industrial PC (Pentium IV), 17" SVGA Color monitor, also of industrial type, and the
appropriate software under MS Windows 2000. This control system is very user
friendly,
because
of
applying
the
well-arranged
menu.
In order to assure the UT reliability, a synchronization unit may be assembled into
the system and a unit for probe localization on the surface of the specimen under
test. The output of the device may control a defect marker and, according to the
customers option, an acoustic and luminous signalization. As a matter of course
there are printing facilities (ink-jet or laser) for recording the flaw distribution in the
material under test (B- and C-scan, thickness or tolerances) or/and an overview during a time interval.
According to the customer's requirements it is possible to operate an acoustic alarm.
DIO 2000 Channel Unit
Features of the basic DIO2000 plug-in-unit
Each channel is created by an independent module (card with electronic circuits) containing all
components as a complete ultrasonic flaw detector with
- adjustable pulse repetition rate;
- adjustable amplifier gain and band filters;

digital signal processing DSP (digital filters, averaging and further functions);
three gates with a set-up alarm;
measuring of echo height maximum, minimum, average, echo extent and graphic processing;
2 analogue outputs (amplitude and time) for C-scan;
automatically renewable freeze mode;
maximum freezing;
external and internal synchronization with adjustable time shift;
possibility of connecting an extern power transmitter to every channel;
possibility of using probes with internal preamplifier.

Transmitter:
location: in each channel unit
transmitted pulse: up to 250 V at 50 loading
transmitted pulse width: 60 ns up to1 s
triggering of the transmitted pulse: internal or external
synchronization of the transmitted pulse: automatic PC controlled
transmitted pulse shift: 0 ns to 10 ms
max. transmitter repetition rate: 10 kHz
operation facilities: normal or TR probes for frequency range from 1 to 20 MHz
transmitter output impedance: adjustable - in steps.from 30 to 1000
Receiver:
Location: in every channel unit
Max. input echo signal voltage: 1 Vp-p
Processable echo signal voltage: < 1 Vp-p to > 0.1 mVp-p at 100% screen height
Adjustable dynamic: +20 dB to +99.9 dB
Gain linearity: 1 %
Receiver frequency range: 0.5 MHz to 20 MHz (for -3 dB)
Input receiver impedance: adjustable from 30 to 1000
Digital Data Processing:
Evaluation: by the built-in microprocessor, amplitude and time comparison, leading edge or peak value
evaluation in selected gate, statistic elimination of interference, data compression, A-scan
Noise suppressor: 0 to 80 % screen height
Gates: 3
Threshold levels: 1 in every gate - adjustable
Gate triggering: synchronized by the transmitter or selected echo leading edge (echostart)
Measuring Accuracy:
Amplitudes for flaw detection: 1 % relative to 10 MHz signal
Time size measurement: 1 m relative to sound propagation velocity (in ferritic steel) for ultrasonic
frequency of 15 Hz
Entering of measuring parameters: by means of a PC trough RS 232; 422, USB
setting of the whole testing system: manual inspection by a PC or by pre-selected parameters stored in
the PC (set at some preceding testing).
DIO-2000 Unit Versions
SF
DIO2000 19 1-16 CH SF
is the most used type with the frequency band 1-15 MHz containing four frames with 16 channels each,
i.e. this type may be broadened till to 64 channels. The automated installations (see thereinafter) supplied
for inspection of steel bars, aluminium blocks, axles and wheels for railway vehicles and others is
equipped with this DIO 2000 type.

HF
DIO2000 19 1-16 CH HF
is the high frequency type with the frequency band from 15 to 60 MHz, which is being used for inspection
of thin components or thickness measurement.
LF
DIO2000 19 1-8 CH LF+BP
is the type provided with a power transmitter foreseen to air coupled inspection of composites, wood,
concrete, ceramics and others. Also four frame may be connected with four channels too. In this way for
low frequency application with 32 channels in the band from 10 kHz to 1 MHz.
DIO-2000 Connection and Casing
Small Size Version
There are cases, where fewer channels are needed. For such purposes, low cost version DIO 2000 with
3 channels only is available.
It is a portable industrial which may be used without PC also, e.g. for defect
marking and control of other devices. The modifications are the same as said
above in connection with the DIO 2000 compact version.

Compact Version
Table Rack Version, Combined Version

Large Rack Version DIO-2000 DS

DC servo controller card with PLC

DIO-2000 Software
SW Possibilities
The large screen of a 17 monitor allows simultaneously displaying of several A-scans and of several
parameters and channel windows as shown in the pictures below.

Example of B-Scan

Air coupled Testing

Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Testing system
During the last decade, air coupled ultrasonic testing has advanced from
being a laboratory curiosity, of little practical application, to a point where it
is a viable technique for many manufacturing inspections. With appropriate
equipment, it is possible to perform sensitive inspections for defects such as
voids, cracks and dis-bonds in a wide variety of water-incompatible
materials. Originally used primarily for aerospace composites, the
applications have been extended to cover a variety of materials where
conventional NDT methods are not normally considered suitable. Diverse
applications of the technique include wood, foams and missile propellants.
A variety of frequencies can be used, allowing optimization for resolution or
penetration as with "conventional" ultrasonic testing. Most applications of air
coupled ultrasound have been for single channel C-scan systems, testing
flat panels. In this context it is normally used as a direct replacement for
water-coupled "squirter" probes, and installing air-coupled probes and
Fig. 1: Air-coupled ultrasonic testing
principle
instrumentation on an existing system so as to inspect a wider range of
materials is generally a simple procedure. The results are often
indistinguishable from those obtained with the water coupling; Figure 1
shows results from inspection of a "knot" in timber.
More recently the use has been broadened. In particular multi-channel systems have been developed
allowing very rapid inspection of large composite panels at a rate approaching 1 m2 per minute. The
current challenge is to overcome the requirements for high transmission power, thus allowing a portable
instrument of uncompromised performance to be developed. This technology shows considerable
promise as a solution to a number of currently impractical testing problems.
Theory of Air-Coupled Ultrasound
When sound passes across an interface between two materials only a proportion of the sound is
transmitted, the rest of the sound is reflected. The proportion of the sound that is transmitted depends on
how close the acoustic impedance of the two materials matches. Water is a fairly good match for most
commonly used materials, for example typically around half the sound energy is transmitted at the
interface between water and a carbon laminate. After four solid-liquid interfaces (from the probe, to the
couplant, to the test piece, and then back again) there is still a few percent of the original energy left so
accurate measurement is possible. Conversely if the sound has to move between the test piece and air
(which has very low acoustic impedance) only around 1 % of the sound energy is transmitted. Thus after
four transitions very little sound energy is left. Typically the overall path loss may be 100 dB higher using
air as a couplant, than when water is used. The path loss is significantly higher with metals, which have
high acoustic impedance compared to plastics which are lower in impedance. It is therefore apparent that
we must work hard to minimize losses at every stage if we are to achieve acceptable signal to noise for
the inspection.

Fig. 2: Transmittion of ultrasonic waves.

Test Configurations

Fig. 3: Schematic of an ultrasonic transducer showing the critical final acoustic

impedance matching layer relative to the piezoelectric element and coupling
medium air.

Because of the tremendous

endous difference in trans mitted and received signal amplitudes, and the inherent
difficulties in achieving adequate transducer/ amplifier isolation and recovery, no current air-coupled
air
NDT
systems works in single probe mode. Separate transmit and receive transducers are always used.

Fig. 6: Plate wave.

Fig. 4: Normal through transmission.
Fig. 5: Shear wave.

Where accurate imaging of defects is required the normal through transmission configuration (Figure 1) is
most appropriate, as used for conventional water coupled ultrasonic testing.
In some materials, particularly laminates, better results are obtained by offsetting the probes and angling
them slightly so that shear waves are produced as shown in Figure 2.
Because there is no couplant to damp surface vibrations, air coupling lends itself well to production of
Lamb or Plate waves as shown in Figure 3. These can travel significant distance in suitable materials.
They have two particular advantages:

It is possible to have both transmit and receive

r
probes on the same side, or both on the outside of a
closed part such as a tube.
Because the test checks a line, rather than a single
point, it is possible to achieve much greater
throughput speeds in applications where a precise
image is not required.

Effect of Frequency
Air coupled ultrasound typically operates at frequencies below 1 MHz, above this the sound transmission
in air reduces, and more importantly, scattering losses in many materials become unacceptably high

(typically scattering losses increase with the forth power of frequency) STARMANS have worked primarily
at 50, 120 and 400 kHz. Results at different frequencies are summarized in Table 1.
Frequency

Typical spot
resolution

Typical Materials

Comments

50 kHz

8-10 mm

Thick structural foams, Complex multi-layer

compo sites, Unprocessed Timber.

Will penetrate almost anything, but resolution is

inadequate for many purposes.

120 kHz

5 mm

Foam sandwiches, two or three layer

honeycombs, medium thickness timber, and
drywall.

Good compromise where max resolution not required.

Can penetrate most 'possible to test conventionally'
materials.

400 kHz

1-2 mm

Solid laminates, single layer honeycombs.

Gives results comparable in resolution to practical

production tests.

Table 1: Effect of frequency on Air coupled UT tests

The majority of the work carried out by STARMANS has been at 400 kHz, but increasingly lower
frequencies are being employed to test more complex composite materials.

Applications
Wood products
As previously noted the timber industry was among
the first that employed air coupled ultrasound
commercially. Applications of air-coupled ultrasound
fall into four main groups:

Assessment of bulk timber for internal decay and

voids prior to processing. This requires extremely
high penetration. Currently fully air-coupled
inspection has not provided adequate signal to
noise ratio, although the technology has been
applied with soon success in conjunction with dry
pressure coupling.

Fig.7: Different approaches to scanning of sheet products

Detection of delaminations and cracking in composite or processed wood products such as

particleboard and pressed wood. This normally involves some form of scanning, although a single line
test is sometimes acceptable. By using a lamb wave it may be possible to test the entire width of a
board, allowing effectively 100% inspection.
Assessment of wood quality by measuring sound transmission velocity. This has been quite
successful, although the tone burst limits accuracy of timing measurement.
In-service Inspection of wood products for internal decay and cracking, for example structural beams
and utility poles.

Many different configurations are used, with thin wood

panels high frequencies can be used, and extremely
good imaging can be obtained, as shown in Figure 8.
Fig. 8: Comparison of photograph and C-scan in wood

Composites

Composite
materials,
particularly
within the
aerospace
industry,
have been a Fig. 9: Scan of part of an aircraft brake disk,
Fig. 10: Impact damage in a
Fig. 11: Bonded foam panel, (test
primary area
dark area appears to be disbonded.
carbon laminate panel.
at 50 kHz).
of
application
for aircoupled
(and drycoupled)
test
methods.
The
Fig. 12: Scan of a complex composite
Fig. 13: As previous figure, tested Fig. 14: Light weight armor panel,
following are
at a higher gain to optimize results showing disbonding after impact.
satellite part (carbon/carbon &
among the
on honeycomb section.
carbon/honeycomb).
examples of
results from
inspection of
composite
parts.
These are all through transmission C scans obtaining results which will be reasonably familiar to users of
conventional ultrasonic testing, however many production inspections can conveniently use a plate wave
configuration, giving simple "go/no go" quality assessments. This has been particularly applied to
pultruded composites.
Metal Parts
The extremely high acoustic impedance of metals, and the corresponding poor transmission coefficients
for sound from air, means that metals are generally poor candidates for air-coupled inspection, however,
when other circumstances are favourable acceptable results may be obtained. A system is currently
being manufactured to inspect bonds in a thin (2 mm) laminated steel tube that is intended for an
aerospace application.
Accurate Timing Measurement Using
Air-Coupled Ultrasound
Relevant physical properties of a material can often be correlated to the velocity of sound. This can be
calculated by measuring the transit time through a reasonably long section of the material. Water would
be incompatible with many of the materials (e.g. wood, where properties are significantly affected by
moisture). Air-coupled lamb waves lead themselves well to this, since the results are reasonably
predictable, there are no coupling arrangements to interfere with production speed, and the experimental
setup can often be arranged so that a fairly long distance in the material can be measured, thus
minimizing error. However, as noted earlier, the duration of the tone burst can be a limiting factor in

measurement precision. To reduce this it is necessary to use a conventional damped probe driven
with a spike or square wave pulse. This greatly reduces the overall efficiency. To counteract this
extremely high power can be used (a 1200 V pulser has been tried, and a 4 kV unit is being developed).
Since these applications do not typically require a rapid sample rate, signal processing can be used to
further improve signal to noise ratio
Large Area Scanning
As noted above the scanning rate of air-coupled ultrasound is limited by the relatively low PRF which is
possible with the long transit times in air. Typically a PRF of around 200 Hz is possible. If we accept a
relatively coarse scan pitch of 3 mm as acceptable for a production test this implies a maximum linear

speed of 600 mm/s and in two dimensions, an absolute minimum time of around 10 minutes to scan one
square meter. The scanning assembly shown in Fig. 11 combines the results from 8 channels, each of

mission test. Customized software assembles the results from

each probe into a single image. The end result is a combined throughput of around 1 square meter per
minute, able to keep up with a high-volume production line for composite panels.
which carries out a through trans

Fig. 16: Equipment for non-contact testing of rockets.

Fig. 15: Example of equipment for inspection of solar panels.

Equipment for Non-Contact Ultrasonic Testing of Wood

16 channel non/contact system for inspection of boards LSL 13. The system evaluates defects in real
time using cluster analysis algorithms.

Robotized Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Testing System

Portable Equipment for Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Testing

Transducers
Ultrasonic Probes for Manual and Automated Testing
The probes (transducers) are very important part of
ultrasonic
NDTinstrumentation.
The Starmans Company is mostly using its own types
of ultrasonic probes being developed in its
laboratories and in some but not numerous special
applications probes of other manufacturers are

connected to the Company s devices as DIO 2000.

Before the final decision for probe construction the
theoretical simulations using mathematical equations
are performed.

Ultrasonic beam simulations

Based on the results from the simulations the real probes are finally developed and constructed.

The conventional probes are the single

one element
and dual
(double element) probes for longitudinal and transversal waves.
According to the direction of the beam axis, there are straight and
angle beam probes. The both kinds of probes are depicted in the
picture. For special purposes, as inspection of concrete, wood or for
specimens with curved surfaces, special focusing probes have been
developed.
The angle probes are mostly supplied for transverse (shear) T
waves, e.g. for ferrite weld inspection. The most common angles

are 45 , 60 , 70 and 80 . Probes for surface waves in

different materials are available also. Austenitic welds require use of L waves. Such probes may be
ordered as well.
In addition, the STARMANS Company may supply some special probe layouts as tandem and LLT
probes and special probes for wood and concrete inspecting.
Focusing probes are developed according to specific customer s requirements.

Air-coupled and EMAT probes (transducers) may be available also.

Two piezoelements combined
probe
with one straight and one
oblique beam

Focusing probe for small

diameter tubing

Probes for manual testing are often not suited for automated and mechanized testing carried out with
multichannel installations. The laboratory of the Starmans Company is designing and developing probes
which are suited for the determined purpose.