Frederic Cegla

High-temperature (>500°c) wall thickness monitoring using dry-coupled ultrasonic waveguide transducers

Conventional ultrasonic transducers cannot withstand high temperatures for two main reasons: the piezoelectric elements within them depolarize, and differential thermal expansion of the different materials within a transducer causes them to fail. In this paper, the design of a high-temperature ultrasonic thickness gauge that bypasses these problems is described. The system uses a waveguide to isolate the vulnerable transducer and piezoelectric elements from the high-temperature measurement zone. Use of thin and long waveguides of rectangular cross section allows large temperature gradients to be sustained over short distances without the need for additional cooling equipment. The main problems that had to be addressed were the transmission and reception of ultrasonic waves into and from the testpiece that the waveguides are coupled to, and optimization of the wave propagation along the waveguide itself. It was found that anti-plane shear loading performs best at transmitting and receiving from the surface of a component that is to be inspected. Therefore, a nondispersive guided wave mode in large-aspect-ratio rectangular strips was employed to transmit the anti-plane shear loading from the transducer to the measurement zone. Different joining methods to attach the waveguides to the component were investigated and experiments showed that clamping the waveguides to the component surface gave the best results. The thickness of different plate samples was consistently measured to within less than 0.1 mm. Performance at high temperatures was tested in a furnace at 730°C for 4 weeks without signal degradation. Thicknesses in the range of 3 to 25 mm could be monitored using Hanning windowed tonebursts with 2 MHz center frequency.

Study and comparison of different EMAT configurations for SH wave inspection

Guided wave inspection has proven to be a very effective method for the rapid inspection of large structures. The fundamental shear horizontal (SH) wave mode in plates and the torsional mode in pipe-like structures are especially useful because of their non-dispersive character. Guided waves can be generated by either piezoelectric transducers or electro- magnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs), and EMATs can be based on either the Lorentz force or magnetostriction. Several EMAT configurations can be used to produce SH waves, the most common being Lorentz-force periodic permanent magnet and magnetostrictive EMATs, the latter being directly applied on the sample or with a bonded strip of highly magnetostrictive material on the plate. This paper compares the performance of these solutions on steel structures. To quantitatively assess the wave amplitude produced by different probes, a finite element model of the elementary transducers has been developed. The results of the model are experimentally validated and the simulations are further used to study the dependence of ultrasonic wave amplitude on key design parameters. The analysis shows that magnetostrictive EMATs directly applied on mild steel plates have comparatively poor performance that is dependent on the precise magneto-mechanical properties of the test object. Periodic permanent magnet EMATs generate intermediate wave amplitudes and are noncontact and insensitive to the variations in properties seen across typical steels. Large signal amplitudes can be achieved with magnetostrictive EMATs with a layer of highly magnetostrictive material attached between the transducer and the plate, but this compromises the noncontact nature of the transducer.

Material property measurement using the quasi-Scholte mode—A waveguide sensor

In the food industry and other industries, rheological measurements and determination of particle sizes in suspensions and emulsions is of great importance for process and quality control. Current test cell based ultrasonic methods exist but are often inconvenient. An attractive alternative could be to insert a simple measurement “dipstick” into the fluid; this paper presents an initial study of the feasibility of using measurements of the velocity and attenuation of the quasi-Scholte mode on a plate to obtain the longitudinal velocity and attenuation of an embedding medium. The attenuation of the quasi-Scholte mode is caused by two mechanisms: shear leakage and attenuation due to the bulk longitudinal attenuation of the embedding material. In a calibration test the bulk longitudinal velocity and viscosity of glycerol were determined experimentally. Measurements agreed well with results from conventional methods and literature data. Quantitative results and an independent validation for honey, a very visc...

Quantitative modeling of the transduction of electromagnetic acoustic transducers operating on ferromagnetic media

The noncontact nature of electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) offers a series of advantages over traditional piezoelectric transducers, but these features are counter-balanced by their relatively low signal-to-noise ratio and their strong dependence on material properties such as electric conductivity, magnetic permeability, and magnetostriction. The implication is that full exploitation of EMATs needs detailed modeling of their operation. A finite element model, accounting for the main transduction mechanisms, has been developed to allow the optimization of the transducers. Magnetostriction is included and described through an analogy with piezoelectricity. The model is used to predict the performance of a simple EMAT: a single current-carrying wire, parallel to a bias magnetic field generating shear horizontal waves in a nickel plate close to it. The results are validated against experiments. The model is able to successfully predict the wave amplitude dependence on significant parameters: the static bias field, the driving current amplitude, and the excitation frequency. The comparison does not employ any arbitrary adjustable parameter; for the first time an absolute validation of a magnetostrictive EMAT model has been achieved. The results are satisfactory: the discrepancy between the numerical predictions and the measured values of wave amplitude per unit current is less than 20% over a 200 kHz frequency range. The study has also shown that magnetostrictive EMAT sensitivity is not only a function of the magnetostrictive properties, because the magnetic permeability also plays a significant role in the transduction mechanism, partly counterbalancing the magnetostrictive effects.

Study on the bubble transport mechanism in an acoustic standing wave field.

The use of bubbles in applications such as surface chemistry, drug delivery, and ultrasonic cleaning etc. has been enormously popular in the past two decades. It has been recognized that acoustically-driven bubbles can be used to disturb the flow field near a boundary in order to accelerate physical or chemical reactions on the surface. The interactions between bubbles and a surface have been studied experimentally and analytically. However, most of the investigations focused on violently oscillating bubbles (also known as cavitation bubble), less attention has been given to understand the interactions between moderately oscillating bubbles and a boundary. Moreover, cavitation bubbles were normally generated in situ by a high intensity laser beam, little experimental work has been carried out to study the translational trajectory of a moderately oscillating bubble in an acoustic field and subsequent interactions with the surface. This paper describes the design of an ultrasonic test cell and explores the mechanism of bubble manipulation within the test cell. The test cell consists of a transducer, a liquid medium and a glass backing plate. The acoustic field within the multi-layered stack was designed in such a way that it was effectively one dimensional. This was then successfully simulated by a one dimensional network model. The model can accurately predict the impedance of the test cell as well as the mode shape (distribution of particle velocity and stress/pressure field) within the whole assembly. The mode shape of the stack was designed so that bubbles can be pushed from their injection point onto a backing glass plate. Bubble radial oscillation was simulated by a modified Keller-Miksis equation and bubble translational motion was derived from an equation obtained by applying Newtons second law to a bubble in a liquid medium. Results indicated that the bubble trajectory depends on the acoustic pressure amplitude and initial bubble size: an increase of pressure amplitude or a decrease of bubble size forces bubbles larger than their resonant size to arrive at the target plate at lower heights, while the trajectories of smaller bubbles are less influenced by these factors. The test cell is also suitable for testing the effects of drag force on the bubble motion and for studying the bubble behavior near a surface.

Long-term stability of guided wave structural health monitoring using distributed adhesively bonded piezoelectric transducers

Industrial interest in structural health monitoring of safety-critical assets is increasing. Guided wave structural health monitoring shows potential for practical use as it allows detection of small defects (1.5% reflection changes) in the presence of environmental changes. Guided wave structural health monitoring systems use bonded piezoelectric sensors to monitor wave propagation patterns and subtraction between signals and baselines from the “healthy” structure for robust discrimination of damage. Long-term stability of structural health monitoring using these techniques has been investigated in this article as this is essential for industrial deployment of a system. Plates that were exposed to thermal cycling in an environmental chamber were monitored using bonded S0 mode sensors operating in pitch catch. Analysis of structural health monitoring data revealed drifts in baseline subtraction results corresponding to progressive reduction in defect sensitivity levels. These drifts were correlated with increases in coherent variability and suspected to be due to variations in the adhesive properties of the bonds between the sensors and the structure. Finite element analysis and further experimental results confirmed that changes in adhesive properties were a likely cause of the degradation in monitoring capability with time.

Optimization of the Bias Magnetic Field of Shear Wave EMATs

The main advantage of electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) over piezoelectric transducers is that no direct contact with the specimen under test is required. Therefore, EMATs can be used to test through coating layers. However, they produce weaker signals, and hence, their design has to be optimized. This paper focuses on the design of a Lorentz force shear wave EMAT and its application in thickness gaging; special emphasis is placed on the optimization of the design elements that correspond to the bias magnetic field of the EMAT. A configuration that consists of several magnets axisymmetrically arranged around a ferromagnetic core with like poles facing the core was found to give the best results. By using this configuration, magnetic flux densities in excess of 3 T were obtained in the surface of a specimen; the maximum value achieved by a single magnet under similar conditions is roughly 1.2 T. If the diameter of an EMAT ultrasonic aperture is 10 mm, the proposed configuration produces signals roughly 20 dB greater than a single magnet, while for a given overall EMAT volume, signals were greater than 3-6 dB. Linear and radial shear wave polarizations were also compared; a higher mode purity and signal intensity were obtained with the linear polarization.

Collective bubble dynamics near a surface in a weak acoustic standing wave field

The transport of bubbles to a neighboring surface is very important in surface chemistry, bioengineering, and ultrasonic cleaning, etc. This paper proposes a multi-bubble transport method by using an acoustic standing wave field and establishes a model that explains the multi-bubble translation by expressing the balance between Bjerknes forces and hydrodynamic forces on a bubble in a liquid medium. Results indicated that the influence of primary Bjerknes force, secondary Bjerknes force, and buoyancy force on the bubble translation depends on the position of the target bubble in the acoustic field. Moreover, it was found that increasing the size of a bubble or pressure amplitude can accelerate the bubble motion and enhance the bubble-bubble interaction. The secondary Bjerknes force between two bubbles can switch from an attractive one when they oscillate in phase to a repulsive one when the bubble oscillations are out of phase. These findings provide an insight into the multi-bubble translation near a surface and can be applied to future bubble motion control studies, especially in drug delivery, sonoporation, and ultrasonic cleaning.

High accuracy wall thickness loss monitoring

Ultrasonic inspection of wall thickness in pipes is a standard technique applied widely in the petrochemical industry. The potential precision of repeat measurements with permanently installed ultrasonic sensors however significantly surpasses that of handheld sensors as uncertainties associated with coupling fluids and positional offsets are eliminated. With permanently installed sensors the precise evaluation of very small wall loss rates becomes feasible in a matter of hours. The improved accuracy and speed of wall loss rate measurements can be used to evaluate and develop more effective mitigation strategies. This paper presents an overview of factors causing variability in the ultrasonic measurements which are then systematically addressed and an experimental setup with the best achievable stability based on these considerations is presented. In the experimental setup galvanic corrosion is used to induce predictable and very small wall thickness loss. Furthermore, it is shown that the experimental me...

The influence of surface roughness on ultrasonic thickness measurements

In corrosion assessment, ultrasonic wall-thickness measurements are often presented in the form of a color map. However, this gives little quantitative information on the distribution of the thickness measurements. The collected data can be used to form an empirical cumulative distribution function (ECDF), which provides information on the fraction of the surface with less than a certain thickness. It has been speculated that the ECDF could be used to draw conclusions about larger areas, from inspection data of smaller sub-sections. A detailed understanding of the errors introduced by such an approach is required to be confident in its predictions. There are two major sources of error: the actual thickness variation due to the morphology of the surface and the interaction of the signal processing algorithm with the recorded ultrasonic signals. Parallel experimental and computational studies were performed using three surfaces, generated with Gaussian height distributions. The surfaces were machined onto mild steel plates and ultrasonic C-scans were performed, while the distributed point source method was used to perform equivalent simulations. ECDFs corresponding to each of these surfaces (for both the experimental and computational data) are presented and their variation with changing surface roughness and different timing algorithms is discussed.