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1. Introduction

1.1 General Introduction to Phased Array

Testing
Many people are familiar with the medical applications of ultrasonic
imaging, in which high-frequency sound waves are used to create highly
detailed cross-sectional pictures of internal organs. Medical sonograms are
commonly made with specialized multielement
probes1 known as phased arrays and their accompanying hardware
and software. But the applications of ultrasonic phased array technology
are not limited to medical diagnosis. In recent years, phased array
systems have been increasing in use in industrial settings to provide new
levels of information and visualization in common ultrasonic tests that
include weld inspection, bond testing, thickness profiling, and in-service
crack detection.

During their first couple of decades, commercial ultrasonic instruments

relied entirely on single element transducers that used one piezoelectric
crystal to generate and receive sound waves, dual element transducers that
had separate transmitting and receiving crystals, and pitch-and-catch or
through-transmission systems that used a pair of single element
transducers in tandem. These approaches are still used by the majority of
current commercial ultrasonic instruments designed for industrial flaw
detection and thickness gaging; however, instruments using phased
arrays are steadily becoming more important in the ultrasonic
nondestructive testing (NDT) field.

The principle of constructive and destructive interaction of waves was

demonstrated by English scientist Thomas Young in 1801 in a notable
experiment that utilized two point sources of light to create interference
patterns. Waves that combine in phase reinforce each other, while waves
that combine out-of-phase cancel each other (see Figure 1-1).

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