USE OF IT & NEW

TECHNOLOGY IN AREA OF
WORK

By:
Nitin Rajput
AM(M&C)
QA,CR,Raigarh
 Current Technology
• During manufacturing or rails, internal defects comes during casting as well
as product rolling stage.
• Currently, during rail inspection, for detecting these internal defects, we rely
on conventional Ultrasonic Testing (UT).
• Ultrasonic scan is done
• Throughout the length. (Normal Probes).
• Weld joint. (Angle Probes)
• Importance of Current Technology:
• Internal defects are disastrous and is a reason for sudden failure.
• UT is a NDT technique which can detect internal defects with following
advantages:
• Safe
• Gives instant results
• Can penetrate high thickness
• Economical
• Can detect majority of types of defects
• Easy to introduce automation
 New Technology
• Phase Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT).
• PAUT is an advanced method of ultrasonic testing that has applications in medical
imaging and industrial non-destructive testing.
• Phased Array consist of :
1. Array of piezoelectric crystals (small probes) which can be pulsed and produce echo independently.
2. Array controller – Electronic setup which produces a time lag in pulsation of different crystals to
produce waves in different phases.
Crystal array coupled with
Conventional UT Array of crystals in 1 array controller to produce
Single Crystal Probe probe time lag
+ Array controller

Waves in different phases interferes constructively and

Fixed directional wave destructively to change the direction of resultant Wave
 Important Features of PAUT
Adjusting the time delay throughout the crystal Array waves, different phases are produced,
which interferes constructively & destructively to produce different wave effects.
• Beam Steering:
• Steering of beam at different angles allows
• Multiple angle inspection using same probe.
• Inspection of larger area of product from one
point of inspection.
• Sectorial Scan of the product.

• Beam focusing:
• Focusing improves resolutions and sensitivity of
the detection.
• Beam Shaping:
• Combination of beam steering and beam
focusing is used to generate the resultant
wave with desired shape of wave front.
 Need for PAUT to replace conventional UT
Scanning Area
• Rail Profile is a combination of Curves and Slopes.
• Therefore, Conventional UT probe cannot be placed over the entire surface
Area of rail.
• While PAUT can be used to generate the wave front that can exactly match
the rail profile.
• It acts like small conventional probes placed throughout the rail profile.
• This increases area of scanning.
• Increases probability of detection
• Ensures better quality of rail.

PA Convention Straight
Probe al probe Area

Scanning
Scanning
Area
Area
Rail Web
 Need for PAUT to replace conventional UT
• For calibration of UT System, Ultrasonic waves are reflected from artificial
known defects to set a gain value.
• In conventional Ultrasonic system, waves may not reflect normally from
the defects due to slope and curves in Rail Profile.
• While in PAUT, probe delays are set in such a way to produce wave that
will be reflected normally from the test defect.

Result:
This Improves signal to
Noise ratio during
calibration and thus
improves Accuracy of
the system making it
more reliable.
slope at
1:20
Phased Array
Probe
Conventional
Normal probe
Wave front parallel to
rail profile byWave
settingfront at an Low Ampltitude loss
High Amplitude loss
angle to profile for reflected Wave
of phase delay for Reflected wave
 Advantages of PAUT
• Single probe of PAUT can mimic many different conventional probes.
• Sensitivity of defect detection at different depths can be maintained by using dynamic
depth focusing feature of PAUT.
• Increases Area of scanning.
• Probability of Detection increases.
• Ensures better quality of product.
• Increases Signal to noise ratio :
• Increases sensitivity & accuracy of the system.
• Decreases false indication due to higher noise levels – making system more reliable.
• Fast & accurate scanning.
• Conventional UT System requires careful mechanical setting of probes to ensure proper
working, this can be skipped in PAUT by adjusting time delay.
• PAUT covers more inspection area from one point of inspection as compared to conventional
UT .
• Other Advantages of PAUT are:
• A, B, C Scan can be generated with very less no. of probe movements.
• size of defect can be visualized more accurately by using PAUT.
• Sectorial or S scan can be generated from one probe position.
 Limitations of PAUT
• Due to the probe structure complexity, Array Probes are
much costlier than the conventional type probes.
• More accurate & complex inspection requires more
complicated array controller which increases the cost
even more.
• Requires high skilled NDT practitioner.
• Increasing complexity of test structure may lead
unexpected false detections.
• An array is likely to have a larger contact area than a
conventional probe, leading to difficulties with acoustic
coupling on rigid surfaces.
 Conclusion
• Some of the companies have already doing weld joint
inspection using PAUT. E.g. RAILECT is doing inspection of AT
Weld joints on the rail track of Network Rail system in UK.

• With automated Rail testing machines based on phased array

technology a higher testing speeds and higher test coverage
area with more accuracy can be achieved.

• Replacement of conventional UT with PAUT must justify the:

• Economic Feasibility
• Technical Feasibility ( Requirement of skilled Manpower).