The Practical Guide To

Ultrasonic Testing
In The Real World

Andrew Cunningham

www.practical-ndt.com
andrew.cunningham@practical-ndt.com
The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

© Andrew Cunningham 2008 All rights reserved.
Published by Practical NDT.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
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Nothing contained in this book is to be construed as a grant of any manufacture, sales or in

connection with any method, process, apparatus, product or composition, whether or not covered
by letter patent or registered trademark.

Printed in Canada by PageMaster

Disclaimer

The author assumes no responsibility for the safety of persons using the information in this book.
This book is for information only.

ISBN 987-0-9809893-0-4
Second printing

2
 Table of Contents
Preface............................................................................................................................................. 5
Sound............................................................................................................................................... 6
Compression Waves ........................................................................................................................ 6
Shear Waves.................................................................................................................................... 8
Lobes, Cones, and Other Myths....................................................................................................... 9
Compression and Shear Waves Travel Together........................................................................... 11
Quick Calculations of the Wavelength (λ) ..................................................................................... 14
Amplitude and Decibels.................................................................................................................. 15
The Screen Display ........................................................................................................................ 16
The Ultrasonic Flaw Detector ......................................................................................................... 18
The Straight Beam Probe and the Dead Zone ............................................................................... 22
Near Zone / Far Zone (Fresnel Zone or Near Field / Far Field)...................................................... 27
Measuring the Initial Pulse (I.P.)..................................................................................................... 31
Reflection, Scatter and Acoustic Shadow....................................................................................... 32
Thickness Measurements............................................................................................................... 33
Checking the Probe Prior to Measuring.......................................................................................... 34
Measuring with a 0° Probe ............................................................................................................. 35
Calibrating for Different Alloys ........................................................................................................ 36
Know Your Probes ......................................................................................................................... 37
Using the IIW V1 Block................................................................................................................... 40
Calibrating to Shear Wave.............................................................................................................. 41
Scanning with a 0° Probe............................................................................................................... 43
Sizing Holes in Machined Parts...................................................................................................... 44
Grid Scan ....................................................................................................................................... 46
Scanning for Internal Pits ............................................................................................................... 48
Scanning for Pits on a Curved Surface (Vessels and Piping)......................................................... 50
Scanning for Volumetric Integrity.................................................................................................... 51
Shear Wave Scan .......................................................................................................................... 52
Mode Change, Creeping Wave or Internal Acoustics??? ............................................................... 53
Distance-Amplitude Correction (DAC) Curve ................................................................................. 55
How to Construct a DAC Curve...................................................................................................... 56
How to use the DAC Curve ............................................................................................................ 56
Making the Transfer Loss DAC ...................................................................................................... 57
Setting Sensitivity ........................................................................................................................... 58
Plotting System .............................................................................................................................. 59
Locating the Reflector Depth with Simple Mathematics.................................................................. 60
Finding the Position in Front of the Probe ...................................................................................... 60
Finding Depth as a Percentage ...................................................................................................... 62
Sizing Techniques .......................................................................................................................... 67
Sizing for Length with Max Amp ..................................................................................................... 68
Sizing for Length with 6dB Drop ..................................................................................................... 70
Sizing for Length with 20dB Drop ................................................................................................... 72
Total Drop....................................................................................................................................... 73

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The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

Combination of all Sizing Techniques............................................................................................. 74

Cross Sectional Sizing Techniques ................................................................................................ 76
Finding the True Angle ................................................................................................................... 78
Cross Sectional Sizing with Maximum Amplitude Technique ......................................................... 79
Interpretation by Cross Sectional Drawing ..................................................................................... 82
Cross Sectional Sizing with 6dB Drop ............................................................................................ 85
Cross Sectional Sizing with 20dB Drop .......................................................................................... 88
Probe Manipulation ........................................................................................................................ 91
Echo Interpretation ......................................................................................................................... 92
Cracks ............................................................................................................................................ 93
Lack of Side Wall Fusion................................................................................................................ 94
Lack of Root Fusion ....................................................................................................................... 95
Lack of Interpass Fusion ................................................................................................................ 96
Slag Inclusion................................................................................................................................. 97
Isolated Gas Pore........................................................................................................................... 99
Porosity Cluster ............................................................................................................................ 100
Concave Root ("Suck Up") ........................................................................................................... 101
Bad Pick-Up ("Stop-Start") ........................................................................................................... 102
Misalignment (High/Low) and, or Mismatch.................................................................................. 103
Tricks of the Trade ....................................................................................................................... 104
Flanges ........................................................................................................................................ 104
T K Y Joints .................................................................................................................................. 105
End Scans of Welds ..................................................................................................................... 105
Nozzle to Shell Welds and Node Plates ....................................................................................... 106
Sizing "invisible" Flaws ................................................................................................................. 109
Nozzle Testing.............................................................................................................................. 112

4
 Preface
During my career, which spans over 30 years, in non-destructive testing and ultrasonics, I have
developed many tricks and alternative techniques that, I believe, improve accuracy and results
while keeping the job simple and efficient. At the same time, I have also paid attention to whether
the data I was seeing corresponded with everything I was taught during my level II training in the
UK. I was surprised to find the ultrasonic effects that I saw every day were often never mentioned,
and were even contradicted by the accepted texts and tutorials.
In this book I have put together some ‘tricks of the trade’, inspection techniques, and beam plot that
I thought useful. Parts of this book may sound controversial, but these techniques have been the
mainstay of my daily work and have been backed up by many years of experience and experiment.
My intent is for this book to be used by the qualified technician so as to improve his skills, the
quality of his results and his efficiency in the daily challenges to be met by the NDT industry.
Due to some of its controversial content I must caution that it is not recommended for exam
preparation. I have endeavoured to make this manual clear, concise and user-friendly. I hope you
find this book useful and that it allows you to challenge the more traditional and orthodox
techniques we were all taught to enable us to qualify.
Please let me know if you disagree or would like to question anything I have written. Your feedback
is most welcome.

Andrew Cunningham

andrew.cunningham@practical-ndt.com

©2008 Andrew Cunningham 5

The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

Sound
The purpose of this section is to give you simple and effective ways to understand and visualise
how ultrasonic waves travel.
Sound is the movement of vibrating atoms and molecules!!!!
Infrasound is the movement of the vibrating atoms below the normal human hearing range of
about 20 cycles per second (which can also be stated as 20 Hz). Infrasound vibrations may be felt
by the hand, depending on the intensity.
Audible sound is the movement of atoms that vibrate at cycles between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. These
are the accepted average figures and are not absolute (a child’s hearing range is generally higher,
while the range of older members of society is typically lower).
Ultrasound is the movement of atoms that vibrate at a rate greater than 20 kHz and above the
accepted norm of the human hearing range.

Compression Waves

Propagation of Sound
Sound propagates through solids, liquids and gases as one atom knocks against the next in a
chain reaction.
The first motion we will discuss is the compression wave. An example is Newton's cradle (Fig. 1)
where energy is passed along the line of balls at such a high velocity that the swinging out of the
end ball appears to be instantaneous. The speed (or velocity) with which the energy passes
through these balls is approximately 6 kilometres per second, and can be considered an analogy to
the compressive wave form of sound through solid metals.

Fig. 1

6
The compression wave is the most efficient way of transmitting sound mechanically through any
medium — gases, liquids or solids. Moving in the line of the wave motion, each atom travels only a
small distance before striking the next atom(s) and passing the energy on. This enables the
waveform to travel at high speeds with minimal loss of energy.

In their natural state, the atoms can be considered stationary and equally spaced (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

In ultrasonics the crystal strikes the atoms, and displaces them (Fig. 3). The atoms will take the
path of least resistance as they move out of the way as quick as possible and will compress into
their neighbours, passing on the vibrations at about 6 kilometres per second (KPS) in steel. This
compression wave will radiate out from its point source in all directions, creating a wave
hemispherical in shape when viewed from the surface.

Fig. 3

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The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

Shear Waves

Fig. 4

The elastic properties of the material will allow the atoms to vibrate, setting up a secondary wave
form, known as shear wave, due to the shearing motion in relation to the direction of propagation
(Fig. 4).

In a solid, it is impossible to create a compression wave without a secondary shear wave form
being generated, and it is likewise impossible to generate a shear wave without creating a
compression wave first. Because the atoms are linked in all 3 dimensions in a solid, both the
compression and shear waveforms will radiate in all directions with a hemispherical wave front.

Fig. 5

Figure 5 shows two spherical wave forms — one compression (red) and one shear (blue) —
radiating out from the point of impact (the front top left hand corner).

8
Lobes, Cones, and Other Myths

Ultrasonic textbooks usually have diagrams such as the one below (Fig. 6) that show the UT beam
firing straight out of the probe in a "flame" configuration. This type of diagram can be misleading
and dangerous to the technician. First of all, sound radiates from its source as a hemisphere
regardless of frequency. The "flame like" model makes it look like all the sound propagates in one
direction.

One wave motion cannot be generated without generating another.

Sonic Lobes

Transducer

Beam Spread

Fig. 6
Psychedelic pictures from the 70”s and 80”s showed interference patterns generated in a liquid or
jelly that were very misleading. There are no such things as lobes. Beam spread is a complete
misnomer; there is no conical effect of sound motion.

The angle and the receptive angle range of probes are down to the design and efficiency of the
transducer and cannot be calculated by the beam spread formula.

The above, though obvious, contradicts what technicians are taught.

Experiment to demonstrate the hemispherical principle

To show that sound will radiate (propagate) hemi-spherically regardless of frequency, a simple
demonstration can be done with two 0° probes.

1) The flaw detector is to be calibrated with a single 0° probe, with a test range of 100mm
across full screen.

2) Connect the second 0° probe to the flaw detector, and set the control to “dual” or “through
transmission”.

3) Place the transmitter probe (shown in blue) onto the IIW V1 (Fig. 7) at the side of the
100mm radius notch.
4) Place the receiver probe (shown in red) on the opposite side, directly underneath the
transmitter.

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The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

5) The first signal on the screen will be a compression wave that will appear at 50mm on the
time base.
6) Move the receiver probe to the 91mm land and the signal will appear from 45.5mm,
increasing as the probe is slid along the 40mm long land to the corner of the land to the
100mm radius until the signal is at 50mm on the screen. Add 20 dB to compensate for the
loss of probe contact area.
7) Place the receiver probe on the 100mm radius bottom corner. The signal will be at 50mm
on the screen. As the receiver is moved around the 100mm radius, the signal will remain at
50mm with minimal drop in amplitude, until 85°, contrary to the "flame like" model.

Fig. 7 IIW V1 Calibration Block

As the receiver probe is slid from the bottom corner around the 100mm radius, a second low
amplitude signal will break off of the first 50mm signal. This is the echo of the first back wall echo
compression wave, which travels across the screen, increasing in distance as the receiver probe
moves towards the top of the 100mm radius.
To confirm that the second signal on the screen is the shear wave
Repeat the above steps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Then:

1) With the first signal at 50mm on the screen, move the gate to the second signal on the time
base.
2) Increase the gain until the signal is 80% screen height.
3) Adjust the velocity until the sound path distance digital display shows 50mm.
4) Note that the velocity of this sound wave is that of a shear wave.
The experiment can now be repeated with shear waves to show that this waveform is also
hemispherical.

10
Compression and Shear Waves Travel Together

The shear wave is a secondary motion of sound that is generated from the primary source of the
compression at an interface, in solids only. The compression wave, after generating the first shear
wave, passes through the solid at 6 KPS (in steel) until it strikes a surface of a different acoustic
impedance (a back wall, crack or inclusion to name a few). When the compression wave bounces
off the reflecting surface, it will lose some of its energy by creating another shear wave and a
surface wave. This will keep repeating as the compression wave keeps bouncing, until the sound
energy from all waves is absorbed into the material as heat energy.
A shear wave cannot be maintained in any medium that has no shear strength (resistance to a
sideward force) such as in gases and liquids.
Surface waves are so rarely used they will not be covered in this book.

Direction of Motion Direction of Propagation

Surface Wave

Shear Wave

Compression Wave

Fig. 8

When the atoms in a solid are struck and compressed, the bonds that tie the molecules together
drag neighbouring atoms inwards to fill the void. They are then followed by a rebound when the
compressed atoms spring back. The movement of the atoms is illustrated in (Figures 8 to11).

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The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11

The compression wave radiates out from a point source on a surface over a hemispherical wave
front (seen as a semi-circle on the cross section). The shear wave is created simultaneously and
propagates at approximately half the speed. The shear wave echoes will appear on the screen
with lower amplitudes, between the 1st, 2nd and subsequent compression back wall echoes
(Fig.12).

1 2 3 4 5 6

Fig. 12
1) First back wall echo compression wave.
2) First shear wave due to mode conversion of the compression wave to a shear wave at the
back wall.
3) First shear wave that travelled to the back wall and then reflected.
4) Second back wall echo compression wave.
5) Repeat shear wave.
6) Repeat shear wave.

12
 Atoms laying equal distance apart in their natural state

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

compression rarefaction compression rarefaction compression

λ
Wavelength λ is measured from peak to peak

Amplitude

Fig. 13

The compression is the gathering motion of the atoms and the rarefaction is the spreading motion
of the molecules from their original position. The wavelength is a measured complete cycle from
peak to peak (or between two points in the same state of deflection and motion).

Note: To allow visualization, the sinusoidal curve is drawn showing the deflection on the vertical
axis, although the actual deflection is horizontal in the direction of travel (Fig. 13).

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The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

Quick Calculations of the Wavelength (λ)

The wavelength is determined by the velocity of sound in the material, divided by the frequency
(time interval between each cycle) of the probe.

To express this as a formula is λ=v

F
Sometimes expressed as λ=c
F

Examples:

To calculate values easily in your head, replace or round up the compression velocity from
5960000mm per second in steel to 6 kilometres per second, and transpose 4,000,000 cycles
per second, for example, to 4 MHz.

Divide the velocity 6 km per second by the frequency of 4 MHz probe.

λ = Velocity ÷ frequency
λ = 6 (x1, 000,000mm/sec) ÷ 4 (x1, 000,000 cycles/sec)
λ = 6 ÷ 4 mm/cycle
λ = 1½ mm/cycle
Shear wave velocity of 3,240,000mm per second: replace with 3km per second and divide it by
probe frequency, for example 4 MHz.
λ = Velocity ÷ frequency
λ=3÷4
λ = 3/4 mm
Knowing the wavelength is said to be important. It is also said that the smallest defect that can be
found is ½ λ, 0.1 of a λ , anything larger than grain, twice the grain size to 10 times the grain size
(depending on who’s book you read). This may be confusing to the technician, when all the
aforementioned are true to a point. The fact is that the smallest defect you can find is irrelevant.
The critical statement is, “What is the biggest defect you can miss?” All the mathematical
formulae in the world will never compensate for a poor scanning pattern or probe manipulation.
Examples will be shown later.

14
Amplitude and Decibels

A decibel is a unit of measuring sound intensity in logarithmic units. "Logarithmic" means that each
decibel step represents a multiplication. For comparing voltage values, use the following formula:

 output 
dB = 20 × log10  
 input 

2
Example : 20 × log10   = 6.021 ≈ 6 dB
1

To double the amplitude of the signal, a gain of 6 dB must be added to the amplifier gain control.
To halve the amplitude of an output signal, 6 dB must be subtracted. (Note that to double the
power, which is related to the square of the voltage, you need only add 3 dB.)

Fig. 14

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The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

The Screen Display

The modern flaw detector uses a rectified screen display, which means that all negative values are
converted to positive, and all signal peaks extend upwards (Fig.15).

Fig. 15

100%
90%
80%

50%

20%
10%
00%

-2dB -2dB

-6dB -6dB

-14dB 20% -14dB

10%
-20dB -20dB

Fig. 16

16
Table of dB steps
100% - 2 dB = 80%

80% - 4 dB = 50%

50% - 2 dB = 40%

40% - 4 dB = 25%

25% - 2 dB = 20%

20% - 6 dB = 10%

10% + 20dB =100%

10% + 6 dB = 20%

100% - 14dB = 20%

100% - 6 dB = 50%

10% + 14dB = 50%

50% - 6 dB = 25%

The signal amplitude on the screen is the measure of the voltage that was generated by the
piezoelectric crystal, which is energized by the returning sound wave. All amplitudes may be
expressed in either dB or % of full screen height as they are linear to each other when compared to
the reference amplitude (Fig. 16).
0° probe reference reflectors are usually 1st or 2nd back wall echo, using flat bottomed and round
bottom holes of differing diameters.
For shear wave and angle probes, the most common references are side-drilled holes of differing
diameters or corner notches, with the received signal set to a reference height for a comparison to
any defect reflecting signal.

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The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

The Ultrasonic Flaw Detector

The ultrasonic flaw detector set has changed in appearance over the years. Long gone are the
cathode ray tubes, vacuum tube, control switches and the large transistors. The modern ultrasonic
digitized set has a liquid crystal display, microchip processor and press buttons. The design and
parts have changed but the function is still the same, to send out a pulse of sound and measure
the time and amplitude of the reflected sound (Fig. 17).

PULSE
PULSE
GENERATOR
GENERATOR

PROBE PROBE
RECEIVER RECEIVER
PREAMPLIFIER PREAMPLIFIER
CONTROLS

ANALOGUE
TO DIGITAL
AMPLIFIER CONVERTER
CONTROLS

Y
Y X
LCD ANALOGUE AND DIGITAL
X
SCREEN DISPLAY SCREEN DISPLAY WITH
CONTROL INFORMATION

Fig. 17

Analogue flaw detector with Cathode ray tube Digital flaw detector with memory and Liquid crystal display

All though the following describes the design of the original UT flaw detectors (cathode ray tubes),
modern L.C.D. versions have been designed to follow the same principle: A beam of light (a ray)
travels through the x and y cathodes, panning across the screen at a constant speed. The
mechanism that controls the panning speed is often known as the “clock”. As this clock speed is a
constant, time can be measured from it. It is called the “Time base”. With no interference, the
beam of light will travel across the screen in the X direction (horizontally) in a straight line (Fig. 18).

18
 Y

Fig. 18

The light travels across the screen at a constant rate and is measured in microseconds. When we
scan 3 dimensional objects, we refer to the time base in mm or inches. Applying a small current to
the Y plates will pull the beam upward.

Fig. 19

An increase in probe output voltage will temporarily increase the upward deflection (resulting in a
spike in the line (Figures 19 and 20). The height of the deflection is called amplitude. To measure
the height of the deflection, we use decibels.

Fig. 20

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The Practical Guide to Ultrasonic Testing In the Real World

Positive +
Negative -

Screen RF mode
Fig. 21
The R. F. (radio frequency) screen display (Fig. 21) shows the amplitude as it is measured, both negative
and positive. The R.F. display is often used to display phase shift (shift of the peaks between left and right
or negative and positive) which may occur when the ultrasonic beam hits the interface between dissimilar
materials.

Fig. 22 Fig. 23
Converting the negative peaks to positive creates the “Full Wave Rectified” screen display (Fig. 22). Moving
the rectified signal to the bottom of the screen gives room for amplification of the signal (Fig. 23).

Fig. 24 Fig. 25
A "Half Wave Rectified" screen display is created by entirely removing either negative or positive
peaks from the data (Figures 24 and 25). When positive peaks are removed, the remaining
negative peaks are flipped up to the positive scale.

20
A fully digitized ultrasonic set with memory files and calculating functions is meant to make the
ultrasonic examination more accurate, but it is a “double-edged sword”. Dependency by the
technician on the automated functions may lead to inaccurate results as examination parameters
change. For example, wear to the shoe of a shear wave probe will change the zero point (or
delay); sensitivity and the exit point on the probe and may also change the beam angle. A
digitized set will not correct these errors, but will simply give inaccurate results. Retrieving the
calibration from the memory is easy, but that it not enough, the calibration must be checked each
time before use.
The gain control is used to manipulate the received electrical signal from the crystal. A change in
the gain control changes the amplification of the incoming signal, but does not change the actual
crystal output. To change the output of the crystal via the pulse generator, the voltage must be
changed. In other words, turning the gain up does not make the crystal work harder or shorten its
working life.

©2008 Andrew Cunningham 21

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