In the periodic inspection of pressure vessel and pressure pipeline, the safety level of the inspected object shall be determined according to the size of the defect. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately measure the size of the defect. The ultrasonic phased array detection technology adopts the array probe with multiple elements, and relies on the computer technology to make the sound beam flexible and controllable within a certain range. Ultrasonic phased array detection technology has high positioning accuracy, fast detection speed and little influence by human factors. Ultrasonic phased array detection technology has been widely used in the detection of complex structure work pieces.

In this paper, the absolute time-of-flight method is proposed to measure the defect size by ultrasonic phased array detection. It is a method to get the crack height by calculating the maximum echo time difference at the end point of defect.

In the simulation and experiment, ultrasonic phased array detection technology is used to measure the size of artificial defect in different test blocks. The natural defect of the weld is also tested in the experiment. The experimental results are compared with the conventional TOFD measurements. The results show that the absolute arrival time technology can achieve the same measurement accuracy as the conventional TOFD.


Research on the Measurement Accuracy of Ultrasonic Phased Array Time-of-Flight Method

Division / Sponsors: 
Pressure Vessels & Piping (PVP)


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/PVP/PVP2020/volume/83815

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