C Lakshmana Rao

It is necessary to size the cracklike defects accurately in order to extend the life of thin-walled (< 10 mm) components (such as pressure vessels) particularly for aerospace applications. This paper discusses the successful application of ray techniques to simulate the ultrasonic time-of-flight diffraction experiments for platelike structures. For the simulation, the diffraction coefficients are computed using the geometric diffraction theory. The A and B scans are simulated in near real time and the different experimental parameters can be interactively controlled due to the computational efficiency of the ray technique. The simulated results are applied to (1) defect signal identification for vertical defects, (2) inspection of inclined defects, and (3) study the effect of pulse width or probe frequency on experimental results. The simulated results are compared with laboratory scale experimental results. Copyright © 2005 by ASME.

Ultrasonic time of flight diffraction (TOFD) for sizing defects is based on the time of flight of the diffracted echo that is generated when a longitudinal wave is incident on a crack tip. This technique has the limitation during near-surface inspection due to signal superposition. Here, this limitation is overcome by using the shear wave-diffracted signal (instead of longitudinal wave) and hence called S-TOFD. Experiments were conducted on samples with defect tip closer to the surface of a flat plate sample to illustrate the utility of the S-TOFD technique. An increase in the flaw sizing accuracy, by using the shear wave-diffracted echoes from the tip and through the application of a signal processing technique (ESIT), was demonstrated. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

It is difficult to accurately size the defects that are oriented at an angle (that is not normal to the wave) using conventional amplitude based ultrasonic techniques. Since Time of Flight Diffraction (TOFD) is based on the diffraction of ultrasound at defect edges, defect sizing using this technique is amplitude independent. However, most of the TOFD based assessment relies on manual sizing, whose accuracy depends on quality of image and the operator's experience. Also, the utilization of TOFD for sections less than 15 mm has reportedly several difficulties. In this paper, we report our attempts to size the vertical and inclined defects using an in-house TOFD system built to inspect thin sections (6-10 mm). To improve sizing, automated defect sizing techniques termed Embedded Signal Identification Technique (ESIT) and Point Source Correlation Technique (PSCT) were developed. A ray tracing based model was also developed for a) optimizing the experimental parameters for thin sections, b) interpreting the received signals. Experiments were conducted on 10 mm thick samples with EDM defects and 6-7 mm welded maraging steel samples. The results obtained using manual and automated techniques were compared. Our comparisons lead us to believe that the automated defect sizing techniques can provide accurate and reliable results for thin sections. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.

Numerical simulation of wave propagation and its interaction with defects in a long range (1 m) thin sections (10 mm) using the regular finite element method is very costly, since it requires very fine meshes to accurately capture response signals. Spectral element method (SEM) is a numerical technique that solves the dynamic problem in frequency domain. SEM has been applied for detection of vertical and horizontal defects. This paper discusses application of SEM to any arbitrarily orientated crack in long range pressure vessels. The simulation of applications of Lamb wave for detection and sizing using TOFD technique is demonstrated. The advantage of the current formulation is quick detection of defects in thin bodies of any orientation using Lamb waves and sizing the same using TOFD techniques are illustrated. Copyright © 2005 by ASME.