This book deals with ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (NDE)
inspections where high frequency waves are used to locate and
characterize dangerous flaws (such as cracks) in materials. Ultrasonic
NDE flaw inspections involve a very complex combination of electrical,
electromechanical, and acoustic/elastic components so that it is
important to understand the behavior of those components and their
interactions in order to make quantitative flaw measurements. It will be
shown that through the use of models and measurements it is now possible
to characterize all the elements of an ultrasonic NDE flaw inspection
system. Those elements include the pulser/receiver, the cabling, the
transducers, and the wave propagation and scattering processes present
in an ultrasonic NDE flaw measurement. It will also be demonstrated how
to combine models and measurements of those elements to form ultrasonic
measurement models which can simulate the flaw signals seen in
ultrasonic NDE tests. This comprehensive modeling and measurement
capability is described for the first time in this book. There are
important engineering applications of this new tech- logy. For example,
these ultrasonic models and measurements can be used to design new
ultrasonic inspections as well as optimize existing ones. This
technology can also help one to extract information on the nature of the
flaw present from the measured ultrasonic flaw signals that can then be
used to evaluate the safety and reliability of the material being
inspected.
