Blackman Nathaniel J, Blandford Benjamin M, Jack David A
Lonestar NDE, Waco, TX 76712, USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, USA.
Materials (Basel). 2024 Oct 19;17(20):5111. doi: 10.3390/ma17205111.
High-performance materials, such as carbon fiber laminates, are costly to manufacture and are often used in demanding environments requiring the use of high-resolution non-destructive testing (NDT) methods to confirm the integrity of the parts. One NDT method that has shown promise for qualifying carbon fiber laminates is the use of immersion ultrasound with spherically focused probes. However, many parts may not be submersible in an immersion tank due to size or material constraints. These parts must be scanned with contact transducers with inferior resolutions or with expensive and messy systems such as bubblers. This research presents the use of a novel housing system that allows for the use of focused immersion transducers in an out-of-tank portable ultrasonic scanning application. This work presents a comparison between scans taken using a custom high-resolution immersion system and scans taken using the presented housing. There are a wide variety of potential inspection applications for this novel system, and the present work focused on two specific applications: the quantification of the spatially varying adhesive thickness in bonded carbon fiber laminates and the quantification of foreign object inclusions in carbon fiber laminates. The results presented show that scans using the portable housing are comparable in quality to scans performed using an immersion system. Specifically, both inspection approaches had an average error of 0.04 mm when quantifying the adhesive thickness of a bonded composite, and for the foreign object detection, the error in quantifying the dimensions of the embedded foreign object was 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm for the immersion system and the portable inspection system, respectively. The demonstration was performed in a laboratory setting, but a discussion is provided for the necessary improvements needed to extend the system for use in field applications.
高性能材料，如碳纤维层压板，制造成本高昂，且常用于要求苛刻的环境，需要使用高分辨率无损检测（NDT）方法来确认部件的完整性。一种已显示出有望用于碳纤维层压板质量鉴定的无损检测方法是使用带有球形聚焦探头的浸入式超声检测。然而，由于尺寸或材料限制，许多部件可能无法浸入浸液槽中。这些部件必须使用分辨率较低的接触式换能器或使用如鼓泡器等昂贵且麻烦的系统进行扫描。本研究介绍了一种新型的外壳系统，该系统允许在非浸液槽式的便携式超声扫描应用中使用聚焦浸入式换能器。这项工作对使用定制的高分辨率浸入式系统进行的扫描与使用所介绍的外壳进行的扫描进行了比较。这种新型系统有各种各样潜在的检测应用，目前的工作聚焦于两个特定应用：对粘结碳纤维层压板中空间变化的胶粘剂厚度进行定量以及对碳纤维层压板中的异物夹杂物进行定量。给出的结果表明，使用便携式外壳进行的扫描在质量上与使用浸入式系统进行的扫描相当。具体而言，在对粘结复合材料的胶粘剂厚度进行定量时，两种检测方法的平均误差均为0.04毫米，对于异物检测，浸入式系统和便携式检测系统在对嵌入异物尺寸进行定量时的误差分别为0.1毫米和0.2毫米。该演示是在实验室环境中进行的，但也讨论了为将该系统扩展用于现场应用所需进行的必要改进。
