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Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry: October 2011
Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry: October 2011
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color
where f is the ultrasonic frequency Table 1 lists
fig typical values of the sound velocity c for various
Figure 1. Sonogram of a fetus materials.
Consider an incident longitudinal plane wave
traveling in perpendicular direction to a bound-
ary or interface between two materials, as shown
Therefore, characterization of these two wave schematically in Figure 4 [2]. For a perpendicular
types and their propagation conditions in solid incident plane wave Pe, only reflected wave Pr
materials can be derived from the sound velocity and transmitted wave Pt are possible. The ratio of
equations. incident and reflected waves is the reflection
sffiffiffiffisffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi coefficient R (Eq. 4), and that of the incident and
E 1m
cL ¼ ð1Þ
r ð1þmÞð12mÞ
Table 1. Sound velocities for different materials
sffiffiffiffisffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
E 1 Sound velocity, Impedance
cT ¼ ð2Þ Material r, 103 kg/m3 km/s (W ¼ rcL),
r 2ð1þmÞ
106 kg m2 s1
cL cT
2W2
T¼ ð5Þ
W1 þW2
frequency beam spreads less for a given value of Focal distance is given in water path length.
Dt or allows the use of a smaller Dt. Path length in a solid is converted to an equiva-
For special laboratory studies, ultrasonic lent path length in water by multiplying by the
pulses can be generated by means of the ther- ratio of sound velocities. Focal distance should
moelastic effect with a strong laser beam. Elec- then be equal to (water path) þ (solid path)
tromagnetic transducers allow noncontact (sound velocity in solid)(sound velocity in
generation and detection. They are suited for water). Search units of various focal distances
automated inspection of pipes and plates at (typically, 1–25-cm water path) are available.
elevated temperature or with rough surfaces,
for which noncontact generation is desirable for
ease of use. Commercially available units can 3.2. Piezocomposite Materials for
be used up to 3 MHz. A strong magnetic field Ultrasound Generation
is required, and a special powering unit must be
used. Nonmagnetic test pieces lower the In most ultrasonic applications the piezoelectric
efficiency. Limits in the frequency range of effect is the basis for ultrasound generation.
operation and lower signal-to-noise ratios are Sound field generation and reception are per-
some of the disadvantages. formed by ultrasonic transducers and ultrasonic
By using the principle of refraction, ultrasonic probes. The active sound generation tool is a
search units can be designed to generate angle special ceramic with piezoelectric properties. In
beams. A plastic wedge is housed with a trans- NDT, ceramic materials like barium titanate
ducer element as shown in Figure 6 B. The BaTiO3, lead zirconate titanate Pb(Zr,Ti)O3
direction of the beam is valid for a specified (PZT), lead titanate PbTiO3 (PT), and lead
material. Surface wave search units are also made metaniobate PbNb2O6 (PN), as well as the semi-
with the same design concept. crystalline polymer poly(vinylidene fluoride)
In the pulse-echo mode, the same search unit (PVDF) in the form of ‘‘monolithic’’ disks are
is used for generation and detection of ultrasonic commonly used for ultrasound generation.
waves. Dual-element search units are also used Meanwhile, other crystal configurations have
which house separate transducer elements for also been used as the basis for ultrasound gener-
detection and generation. Two separate search ation. The use of 1-3 composite materials has the
units are employed for the through-transmission advantage of higher coupling coefficient and
mode, in which one is dedicated for receiving the more effective ultrasound generation in compar-
ultrasonic waves. Received ultrasonic waves ison with monolithic ceramics and polymers.
produce low-level electrical signals. Electronic The Pennsylvania State University’s Materials
amplifiers with low noise levels (even for a wide Research Laboratory developed a large variety of
bandwidth of 0.1–50 MHz) are used to provide piezoelectric composite materials that consist of
good signal-to-noise ratios. When a single search a ceramic and a polymer phase with different
unit is used for transmission and receiving, an connectivities [7, 8]. The connectivity in one,
input protection circuit is required and the input two, or three dimensions in a composite is desig-
amplifier must be capable of rapid recovery from nated as 1, 2, or 3. Therefore, a piezocomposite
an overload due to the excitation pulse. consisting of piezoelectric ceramic rods aligned
The sound beam can be focused by means of in parallel and embedded in a polymeric resin
an acoustic lens attached to the front surface matrix is called a 1-3 composite. The ceramic
of the transducer. This requires a water path rods connected in only one direction, i.e., the
between the lens and the test piece. Transducers poled direction of the material, have a connec-
can be spherically focused to a spot or cylindri- tivity of 1. On the other hand, the polymer phase
cally to a line. For the latter, a rectangular connects in all three dimensions, and has a
transducer element is used. Spherical focusing connectivity of 3. Figure 9 shows schematically
achieves the same for pipe and tubing inspection. the 1–3 piezocomposite arrangement [9–11].
Both can increase near-surface resolution with- Although it seems easy to produce such
out increasing the transducer frequency. Focus- ceramic materials with the knowledge of wafer
ing also reduces the effects of surface roughness technology, there are some difficulties in the
and contour. manufacturing processes. These difficulties have
500 Nondestructive Testing, 3. Ultrasonics Vol. 24
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fig
Figure 9. 1-3 piezocomposite arrangement
a) Resin; b) Piezoelectric ceramic rods
3.3. Phased Array Technique and the delay time distribution at the symbolic
printed elements are qualitative.
When inspection methods with different angles Angle beam steering is accomplished by ap-
of incidence are required, a multiprobe arrange- plying a linear time delay function to the indi-
ment or phased array technique is helpful. In the vidual elements. For an unfocused sound field,
phased array technique destructive and con- the angle of incidence is directly proportional to
structive interference are used for beam forming the applied time delay; with increasing applied
procedures. Prerequisite for these is that the time delay, the angle and delay time decrease.
sound is generated by a crystal of size smaller The delay time t is calculated using Equation (7),
than or equal to the ultrasonic wavelength, where a is the desired angle of incidence, n ¼ 0,
which ensures that Huygens’ principle is appli-
cable, as shown schematically in Figure 12.
Figure 12A shows the situation for destructive
interference. The thus-generated sound field has
a straight propagation direction, known from
monolithic crystal. For sound field forming,
constructive interference as illustrated in Figure
12B is necessary. Typical industrial ultrasound
applications utilize short pulse lengths. The
advantage of phased array techniques are as
follows:
1, 2, . . . the number of array elements, c the With the help of Figure 15 the interpretation of
sound velocity in the examined material, and d Equation (9) is as follows: Geometrical focusing
the distance between the centers of two side-by- is only possible if the aperture size (in the present
side elements. case the crystal size D) is much larger than the
d
wavelength, but this condition, mostly true in the
tn ¼ n sin a ð7Þ optical field, is not the case in the acoustic field.
c
That is the reason why in ultrasonics the near field
length, i.e., ‘‘natural sound field focusing’’, must
This equation can be derived with the help of be taken into consideration, as illustrated in
Figure 14 for an element spacing of d ¼ lx. Figure 15. Thus, sound field focusing in the
For sound field focusing, delay time distribu- particular case of NDT with ultrasound is only
tions with the behavior of lenses are necessary. possible within the near-field length. The result
Focusing is accomplished by applying a delay of this approach is a fixed focus depth. Another
function; various functions such as parabolic application is the dynamic focusing procedure
functions can be used for this purpose. The focal shown in Figure 16. The delay times of the
depth is inversely proportional to the applied received signals are dynamically adapted with
time delay; therefore, with decreasing maximum increasing or decreasing time of flight. There-
applied time delay, the focal depth increases. The fore, the actual focal depth is equal to the actual
formula governing this behavior is shown in time of flight. The transmitted sound field must
Equation (8) for a focused ultrasonic beam prop- reflect these circumstances, i.e., a sound field
agating at a ¼ 0 into a material, where f is the with a suitable amplitude must exist in the total
required focal depth. The other variables are focusing depth region [15].
defined above. Another sound field focusing method is self-
" sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi# focusing [16]. The principle is as follows: Trans-
f nd
tn ¼ 1 1þ ð8Þ mission of a divergent sound field to a reflector in
c f
The focal depth f is calculated by means of a well-
known optics equation. Equation (9) describes
the relationship between optical and acoustical
focal depth [14].
N 0 0 0
f0 ¼ ðf 0:82f 2 þ0:43f 3 Þ ð9Þ
1f 0
a volume of a material similar to the examined meantime also other sound field steering tech-
material. The reflected sound field is measured niques have become available, for example,
with all elements of an array. With a mathemati- the ‘so-called sampling phased array (SPA)
cal algorithm all received signal are added in approach [17, 18]. The SPA (Fig. 17) measures
such a way that the sum over all signals has a elementary waves generated by individual
maximum. elements of the sensor array to reconstruct the
Both steering the angle of incidence and sound composite phased array signal for any arbitrary
field focusing can be carried out simultaneously. angle or focal depth. Currently (ca. 2010), few
Equation (10) describes this behavior. such systems are commercially available.
While a conventional phased array requires the
2 sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi3
2 use of a delay law to create a particular beam in
f4 nd nd
tn ¼ 1 1þ 2 sin a5 ð10Þ the test object, SPA synthetically generates
c f f
beams as a post-processing operation. In SPA
the data is collected by firing in turn all or
The above-mentioned procedure for sound field selected elements and, for each firing, receiv-
steering is more or less the historical version. ing across the entire array. Because of their
Nevertheless, most commercial phased array small size (less than or equal to the wave-
equipment uses the delay time principle. In the length), each element generates a nearly
color
fig
Figure 17. Principle of sampling phased array
504 Nondestructive Testing, 3. Ultrasonics Vol. 24
point-source sound field that sonifies the entire and therefore determination of the defect coor-
test volume. The returning ultrasonic echo dinates becomes ambiguous. Two methods are
signals from a single shot by one probe element feasible; for the generation of longitudinal
are captured by all of the probe elements, as waves, sound field steering around the straight
shown in Figure 17. angle of incidence, i.e., coupling the array direct-
The benefits of SPA are threefold. Firstly, ly to the surface, while for the generation of shear
the matrix can be reconstructed for the widest waves the array is on a wedge with a fixed angle
possible range of sonification angles for a of incidence. Variation around this angle delivers
given array, which improves detection of an angle scan. With the knowledge of Snell’s law,
defects with different orientations. Secondly, choice of longitudinal or shear waves is possible,
the complete volume of the material can be too. The relative orientation of the elements on
imaged through the use of appropriate recon- the wedge offers other possibilities of sound field
struction algorithms such as the total focusing variations [19].
method (TFM), which can achieve a focus at Variation of the angle of incidence is shown
every point within the image, without the need schematically in Figure 18A, and variation of the
to generate individual plots of amplitude skewing angle in Figure 18B, in which the ele-
versus time (A-scans). Thirdly, once the data ments are oriented perpendicular relative to Fig-
are collected, they can be stored for auditing ure 18A. Both sound field variations are possible
purposes and processed to produce any image with one arrangement by using a matrix array
type, either immediately or at a later date. For (Fig. 18C). In the meantime the number of dif-
example, the received signals can then be used ferent types of phased array probes for different
to reconstruct at one or more arbitrary angles applications is increasing and becoming com-
and/or focal depths. mercially available. An example of a twin-crystal
phased array probe is shown in Figure 19, with
the advantage that through scanning of, e.g., 16
3.3.1. Phased Array Probes elements the sensitivity area moves along the
depth direction. In this particular case, applica-
At the beginning of the phased array technique, tion of the phased array technique performs the
some scientists had the hope that with an array scanning procedure by changing the active
coupled directly on the surface all ultrasonic element group of the crystal along the total
inspection tasks could be fulfilled. The mistake crystal size, whereas the angle of incidence is
of this idea was that with increasing angle of nearly constant. This example demonstrates the
incidence the effective aperture size rapidly de- variety of the phased array approach. Such an
creases (see Fig. 12). Thus, the opening angle arrangement of crystal elements can be employed
also increases with increasing angle of incidence, with advantage in the inspection of austenitic
color
fig
Figure 20. Turbine shaft inspection by the phased array technique
a) Phased array probe; b) B-scan; c) Shaft rotation; d) Pixel system; e) Rectified A-scan
506 Nondestructive Testing, 3. Ultrasonics Vol. 24
color
fig
Figure 21. Nozzle corner inspection with a phased array probe coupled to a reactor pressure vessel (RPV)
a) Probe; b) Skewing angle; c) Examination area; d) Indication generated due to interference in the cladding (fishtail-shaped);
e) Crack indications
Figure 21 shows another example: inspection inclined wedge surface, and the sound moves
of a nozzle corner [21]. The inspection of this along the coupling surface. Variation of the angle
component requires modification of both the of incidence in addition to the scanning proce-
angles of incidence and the skewing angles dur- dure covers the whole examination range in the
ing probe movement around the nozzle. For data plane of incidence. Total weld examination takes
visualization and evaluation, the echotomogra- place due to probe movement parallel to the weld.
phy approach is also a successful tool. Indeed, The above examples give an idea about the
application of the phased array technique for this possibilities and the variation range of phased
special problem was the breakthrough of the array applications. The phased array technique
technique in the nuclear field. Since then the is used meanwhile in many technical fields: rail
phased array method was also optimized for wheel and track inspection [24–26], weld
other inspection problems, e.g., weld inspection inspection in general [27–30], inspection of
[22, 23]. aircraft components [31–33], inspection of pres-
The probe configuration shown in Figure 22 surized components [27, 34], and so on. The
can reduce the inspection time and increase the phased array technique realizes an old dream of
reliability. In both phased array probes, a group ultrasonic inspection to have a widespread
of active elements (e.g., 10) move along the sound field for defect detection independent of
defect orientation, and a focused sound field for
the estimation of the defect coordinates and
evaluation of defect size.
4. Inspection Methods
When a search unit is placed directly over the
surface of a part under test in contact inspection,
a thin layer of liquid couplant is used to provide a
color low loss path for wave transmission. Water, oils,
fig glycerol, greases, and resins are used as cou-
Figure 22. Weld inspection plants. Certain soft rubbers have been specially
Vol. 24 Nondestructive Testing, 3. Ultrasonics 507
formulated to provide dry coupling of a search stationary and a test piece moved past it, or it may
unit. In immersion inspection, the part under be moved over a fixed test piece.
inspection and the search unit are placed in a A search unit can be fitted with a squirter, a
tank of water. Here, a water path exists in place of nozzle through which water streams out under
a couplant layer. A search unit is usually fitted pressure, which provides a column of water for a
with a waterproof connector and attached to a sound beam to reach the test piece. The squirter
manipulator. It is usually set manually but is technique can be combined with robotics. This
increasingly used under computer control. combination eliminates the size limitation of
In conventional immersion inspection, the immersion testing, can be adapted to complex
search unit and the test piece are placed in a contours, and is suited for automatic operation.
water-filled tank. The search unit is connected via Another method, known as the bubbler method,
a manipulator and an extension tube to an elec- uses a small tank with overflowing water. A
tromechanical scanning device (or a probe ma- search unit is placed in this tank, and a test piece
nipulator bridge). The basic scanning device is moved over it.
provides X–Y movements of prearranged scan-
ning patterns. Advanced units add computer
control that adapts to the shape of a test piece. 5. Display Methods
Turntables and roller drives allow efficient scan-
ning of round disks and cylindrical test pieces. A Results of ultrasonic testing are commonly pre-
rotating reflector inside a tube can be used to sented in A-scan, B-scan, and C-scan and, more
reflect the ultrasonic beam of an immersion recently, with reconstructed images. The A-scan
search unit toward the tube wall, allowing the presentation is a plot of amplitude versus time, as
inspection of thickness changes or flaws by shown in Figure 24. Front reflection, back reflec-
means of normal or shear beams (Fig. 23) tion, and a flaw echo are indicated on the time
[35]. Scanning is synchronized with ultrasonic axis, which corresponds to depth. The height of
data acquisition, and flaw indications are dis- the flaw echo is related to the size of the flaw. In
played at corresponding locations. An X–Y the absence of a flaw, an A-scan over a longer
recorder has been used for such a display, but period also shows the ultrasonic attenuation of
recent equipment can store the scan position and the test piece. Multiple back reflections, whose
ultrasonic data from 107–108 locations in digital heights decrease exponentially, are detected.
form. Real-time or post-test analysis of the stored The B-scan presentation is used to display the
data provides detailed color displays. depth and length of a flaw. The transducer is
Wheel-type search units consist of a station- moved along the front surface, as shown in
ary transducer element, a liquid path inside a Figure 25. When a flaw echo exceeds a prede-
rubber tire, and a rolling wheel to provide
continuous contact with a test piece. The trans-
ducer element can be placed for straight-beam or
angle-beam inspection. The wheel unit can be
33 I.G. Pettigrew, D.I.A. Lines, J.A. Skramstad, R.A. Smith, C.-H. Chen (ed.): Ultrasonic and Advanced Methods for
K.J. Kirk: Further Developments in Ultrasonic Phased Nondestructive Testing and Material Characterization,
Array Inspection of Aging Aircraft, NDT Solutions, Inc. World Scientific, Singapore 2007.
(NDTS), Aerospace Testing Expo, Munich, 27–29 March R. Halmshaw: Industrial Radiology. Theory and Practice,
2007. 2. ed., Chapman & Hall, London 1995.
34 P. Ciorau: A Contribution to Phased Array Ultrasonic C. J. Hellier: Handbook of Nondestructive Evaluation,
Inspection of Welds Part 1: Data Plotting for S- and B- McGraw-Hill, New York, NY 2001.
Scan Displays, www.ndt.net/search/docs.php3?id¼4519. S.-S. Lee, I.-k. Park, S.-j. Song (eds.): Advanced Nondestruc-
35 C. Broere et al.: Nondestructive Testing, vol. 4, Pergamon tive Evaluation, World Scientific, Singapore 2008.
Press, Oxford 1988, pp. 2424–2432. P. E. Mix: Introduction to Nondestructive Testing, 2. ed.,
Wiley, Hoboken, NJ 2005.
L. Mordfin (ed.): Handbook of Reference Data for Nonde-
structive Testing, DS 68, ASTM, West Conshohocken,
Further Reading PA 2002.
H. L. M. dos Reis (ed.): Nondestructive Testing and Evalua-
J. Blitz: Electrical and Magnetic Methods of Nondestructive tion for Manufacturing and Construction, Hemisphere,
Testing, Hilger, Bristol 1991. New York 1990.
L. Cartz: Nondestructive Testing, ASM International, L. W. Schmerr, S.-J. Song: Ultrasonic Nondestructive
Materials Park, OH 1999. Evaluation Systems, Springer, Boston, MA 2007.