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3. TESTING TECHNIQUES AND THEIR LIMITATIONS

3.1 Pulse echo technique

This is the technique most commonly utilized in the ultrasonic testing of materials. The
transmitter and receiver probes are on the same side of the specimen and the presence of a
defect is indicated by the reception of an echo before that of the backwall echo. The CRT
screen shows the separation between the time of arrival of a defect echo as against that of
the backwall of the specimen. This technique, therefore, facilitates the accurate location of
the defect. The principle of the pulse echo method is illustrated in Figure 3.1 a, b and c.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 3.1 : Principle of pulse echo method of ultrasonic testing;

a) Defect free specimen,
b) Specimen with small defect and
c) Specimen with large defect.

There are two ways to transmit ultrasonic waves into the test specimen in pulse echo testing.
One is the normal (or straight) beam technique and the other is the angle beam technique.
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3.1.1 Normal beam techniques

In the normal beam technique the ultrasonic beam is projected perpendicularly into the test
specimen. This technique may use either single, double or (SE) normal beam probes. With
the single probe, the transducer of the probe acts as both transmitter and receiver. In this
technique an ultrasonic beam pulse is projected into the specimen and echoes from the flaws
within the specimen and from the backwall of the specimen are received. The occurrence of
a large transmission pulse, renders the single probe technique ineffective for the detection of
near surface flaws and for thin wall thickness measurements. In twin crystal normal beam
probe techniques the two transducers are housed in the same casing, with one of the
transducers acting as a transmitter and the other as a receiver. With these techniques, thin
wall thickness measurements and near surface flaw detection are possible because of the
elimination of the transmission pulse. Normal beam techniques are used for the detection of
flaws which are parallel to the scanning surfaces (such as lamination in plates), for thickness
measurements, and for the inspection of brazed and bonded joints, etc.

3.1.2 Angle beam techniques

The angle beam technique is used to transmit ultrasonic waves into a test specimen at a
predetermined angle to the test surface. According to the angle selected, the wave modes
produced in the test specimen may be mixed longitudinal and transverse, transverse only, or
surface wave mode. Usually, transverse wave probes are used in angle beam testing.
Transverse waves at various angles of refraction between 35 and 80 are used to locate
defects whose orientation is not suitable for detection by normal beam techniques. Most of
the weld inspection is carried out with angle beam probe techniques.

3.1.3 Different versions of pulse echo technique

3.1.3.1 Direct contact pulse echo technique

In this technique the ultrasonic probe is almost in direct contact with the test specimen. Only
a very thin coupling medium is present between the two. This technique is mostly used with
manual testing. A major disadvantage in contact testing is the difficulty in maintaining
constant coupling when scanning the probe across a test surface. Fluctuation in flaw echo
amplitude of 2 dB can be recorded even under the best contact conditions during scanning.
Also the speed of inspection is much slower than the immersion technique.

3.1.3.2 Immersion testing technique

Constant coupling of the probe is required for critical testing. This can be achieved by using
the immersion testing technique. In this technique there is a column of suitable couplant,
usually water, between the probe and the test specimen with the probe or both probe and
specimen immersed in water, (hence the name immersion testing technique). Different
versions of this technique are described briefly in Section 3.4.

Some of the advantages of immersion technique are:

i) For generation of shear waves the immersed longitudinal wave probe in water is
simply angulated with respect to the test specimen surface. This incident angle in
water should be such as to provide the resultant shear wave angle in the test
specimen. The incident angles in water to give 45, 60 and 70 shear wave angles
in steel and aluminium calculated according to Snell's law are given in Table 3.1.
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Table 3.1 : Transverse wave angles for water-steel and water-aluminium interfaces for
immersion technique.

Shear wave angle 45 60 70

Material Incident Angles
Steel
Vt = 3230 m/sec 19 23.5 25.6
Aluminium
Vt = 3089 m/sec 20 24.6 27

ii) As the probe never touches the specimen, therefore, very thin crystal (hence high
frequency) probes can be used. These thin crystal probes cannot be used in contact
testing for their fragility.

iii) In immersion technique focusing lenses and collimators can be used for focusing the
ultrasonic beam, if required. This focusing of the beam results in a better lateral
resolution.

iv) The inspection time is much less compared to the manual testing technique.

Some of the limitations of this technique are:

(a) Surface waves can not be generated using this technique.

(b) The speed of longitudinal ultrasonic waves in water (V l =1483 m/sec) is

approximately 4 times slower than the speed of longitudinal ultrasonic waves in
steel (Vl=5960 m/sec). This fact necessitates the following precautions to be taken
during immersion testing:

i) The water gap between the test specimen and probe should be more than 1/4
of the steel specimen's maximum thickness to ensure that the water/steel
interface echo does not repeat before the first backwall echo from the test
specimen (Figure 3.2).

ii) Any slight up and down movement of the probe is quadrupled on the screen
of the flaw detector so that the echoes move right and left alarmingly when
the probe is hand held. This necessitates the mechanical scanning of the
probe in immersion technique. Besides this another fact that also calls for
mechanical scanning instead of manual scanning in immersion testing is the
increased directionality of ultrasonic beam in water. This results in large
amplitude variations when the beam is slightest bit off normal to the test
surface.
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Figure 3.2 : Immersion testing indications.

The three basic coupling arrangements used in immersion testing are the immersion
technique, the bubbler technique and the wheel transducer technique. In the immersion
technique both the probe and the test specimen are immersed in water. The ultrasonic beam
is directed through the water into the test specimen, using either a normal beam technique
(Figure 3.3 a) for generating longitudinal waves or an angle beam technique (Figure 3.3 b)
for generating transverse waves.

(a)

(b)

Figure 3.3 : Immersion testing techniques.

In the bubbler or squirter technique, the ultrasonic beam is directed through a water column
into the test specimen (Figure 3.4 a). This technique is usually used with an automated
system for high speed scanning of plate, sheet, strip, cylindrical forms and other regularly
shaped forms. The ultrasonic beam is either directed in a perpendicular direction (i.e.
normal direction) to the test specimen to produce longitudinal waves or is adjusted at an
angle to the surface of the test specimen for the production of transverse waves. In the
wheel transducer technique (Figure 3.4b) the ultrasonic beam is projected through a water
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filled tire into the test specimen. The probe, mounted on the wheel axle, is held in a fixed
position while the wheel and tire rotate freely. The wheel may be mounted on a mobile
apparatus that runs across the specimen, or it may be mounted on a stationary fixture, where
the specimen is moved past it (Figure 3.5 a and b).

Figure 3.4 : Bubbler and wheel transducer technique.

The position and angle of the probe mounted on the wheel axle may be constructed to
project normal beams, as shown in (Figure 3.5 a & b) or to project angled beams as shown
in Figure 3.6.

Figure 3.5 : Stationary and moving wheel transducers.

Figure 3.6 : Wheel transducer angular capabilities.

3.1.3.3 Tandem technique

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In pulse echo technique sometimes two probes are used, one as a transmitter, and the other
as a receiver of ultrasonic energy, with fixed distance between them for the detection of
defects which are essentially vertical to the test surface (Figure 3.7).

Figure 3.7 : Tandem technique arrangement.

This arrangement is known as tandem technique. The probe separation 'S' is given by:

S = 2 (t - d) tan  (3.1)

Where

= probe angle
t = specimen thickness, and
d = depth of the aiming point

3.2 THROUGH TRANSMISSION METHOD

In this method two ultrasonic probes are used. One is the transmitter probe and the other is
the receiver probe situated on opposite sides of the specimen as shown in Figure 3.8.

Figure 3.8 : Position of transmitter and receiver probes in the through transmission method
of ultrasonic testing.

In this case the presence of an internal defect will be indicated by a reduction in amplitude,
or in the case of gross defects, complete loss of the transmitted signal. The appearance of
the CRT screen in such cases is illustrated in Figure 3.9 a, b and c.
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Figure 3.9 : The appearance of CRT screen for defects of varying sizes in case of through
transmission method.
(a) defect free specimen.
(b) specimen with a small defect.
(c) specimen with a large defect.

The method is normally used for the inspection of large ingots and castings having gross
defects. The method does not give the size and location of the defect. In addition a good
mechanical coupling for the alignment of two probes is essential.

3.3 RESONANCE METHOD

A condition of resonance exists whenever the thickness of a material equals half wavelength
of sound or any integral multiple thereof in that material. Control of wavelength in
ultrasonic is achieved by control of frequency ( = V/f ). If we have a transmitter with
variable frequency control, it can be tuned to create a condition of resonance, for the
thickness of plate under test. This condition of resonance is easily recognized by the
increase of received pulse amplitude. Knowing the resonance or fundamental frequency f
and velocity V of ultrasound in the specimen, the thickness’’ of the specimen under test can
be calculated from the equation:

t = V / 2(fn - fn-1) (3.2)

Where

fn = frequency at nth harmonic

fn-1 = frequency at (n-1)th harmonic

Resonance method of ultrasonic is especially suited to the measurement of thicknesses of

thin specimen such as the cladding tubes for reactor fuel elements. Figure 3.10 shows the
basic elements of a resonance testing technique.
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Figure 3.10 : Basic components of a resonance testing equipment.

3.4 METHODS OF COUPLING

Proper coupling medium or couplant should be used between the probe and the test
specimen to improve the transmission of ultrasonic energy by eliminating air between the
two. Commonly used couplants in ultrasonic testing are glycerine, water, oils, petroleum
greases, silicone grease, wall paper paste and various commercial paste like substances. For
the selection of a suitable couplant for a particular ultrasonic inspection task the following
points should be taken into consideration:

i) Surface finish of the test specimen

ii) Temperature of the test specimen
iii) Possibility of chemical reactions between the test specimen and the couplant
iv) Cleaning requirements (some couplants are difficult to remove).
v) Cost of couplant

3.5 TESTING WITH AUTOMATIC ULTRASONIC TESTING SYSTEMS

Automatic systems are used where large amounts of similar parts are to be tested. These
systems essentially consist of one or several probes which are coupled to the test specimen
by a control unit and are moved across the test object according to a predetermined scanning
pattern. The ultrasonic signals are processed by the evaluation unit (e.g. an ultrasonic flaw
detector) and displayed on a CRT-screen, if available. All measured data along with the
information about the probe position are fed to a computer where they are further processed
and evaluated. The test report is produced by means of a printer. The computer also controls
the marking and sorting device which marks the flaw locations on test objects. Test objects
which have unacceptable flaws are rejected. A further task of the computer is to control the
transport of the work piece and to signal defined test conditions. Figure 3.11 shows block
diagram of a typical automatic ultrasonic testing system.
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Figure 3.11 : Block diagram of a typical automatic ultrasonic testing system.

In addition to the greatly increased speed of inspection, the automatic testing systems also
have the following improvements over the manual testing.

i) Elimination of operational variations and personal errors accompanying manual

examination.

ii) Saving of manpower by reduction of working time.

iii) Accuracy of records, and enlarged capacity of data processing.

iv) Automatic analysis and evaluation of the results by computerized system.

Probe-specimen arrangements in some of the areas of applications for automatic ultrasonic

testing systems are shown in Figure 3.12. Figure 3.12 a shows the arrangement for a large
scale plate testing facility. Large scale plate testing frequently uses automatic testing at the
end of the rolling process. To achieve a test speed as high as possible the whole plate is
transported along a row of several probes at a constant speed. The coupling is mostly done
by water jets so that the probes are not in direct contact with the plate. The test speed is
approximately 1 m/s. The flaws are marked on the plate surface and simultaneously
recorded in a test report. Plates of smaller dimensions and for which high quality demands
exist, e.g. aluminium plates for the aircraft industry, are tested using the immersion tank
(Figure 3.12 b). In this case the plate remains stationary and a bridge which is located above
the water tank, is moved along the whole length of the tank (X-direction). The probe holder,
which is mounted on the bridge, moves in the Y-direction and the probe itself can be moved
up and down (Z-direction). The plate is totally immersed in water and the water tight probe
is guided along the plate at a fixed distance scanning the entire width of the plate in the Y-
direction. On completion of this sequence the bridge is moved further to a fixed distance
and the probe continuous scanning in the Y-direction. The monitor gate in the ultrasonic
instrument monitors the flaw expectancy range and an XY-recorder or printer marks out the
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test report. Smaller immersion tanks are used for test objects having the same shape.
Immersion tanks can also be used for scanning test specimens of various circular shapes.
For instance, a round disk like test specimen may be placed on the turntable and rotated
while the probe is moved radially outward, thus producing a spiral scanning pattern. The
spiral pattern is displayed on a disk type recorder. A cylindrical test specimen can be
scanned in a helical pattern, with a drum type recorder being used to display available data.
Accessory equipment are also available for scanning long cylinders in a horizontal position.

Figure 3.12 : Different arrangements with automatic testing.

Tubes of diameters up to approximately 120 mm are tested in rotary testing machines

(Figure 3.12 c). A test head containing the probes, rotates around the tube at a high speed
and the tube, being transported linearly, is thus tested on a spiral scanning rack. The
coupling medium is water. This test machine carries out a continuous wall thickness
measurement but it also detects crack-type flaws on the inner and outer walls of the tube as
well as flaws inside the wall. The rotary technique cannot be used for tubes having larger
diameters. They are tested with the partial immersion technique (Figure 3.12 d). The probes
are fixed in a tank which is closed by a rubber lip. After the tank has been filled with water
the tube is spirally transported through it while it is being tested.

Square test material is moved along stationary probes which are coupled into the test object
with water. If the test employs two probes then these are off set through 90 on the billet,
which is transported edge ways (Figure 3.12 e) so it also can detect flaws which run inclined
inside the billet. If a 100% test is required the billet guiding device is equipped with further
probes.