| Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (NDE) is a critical diagnostic tool in many industries. It is used to characterize potentially dangerous flaws in critical components for aerospace, automotive, and energy applications. The use of phased array transducers allows for the extension of traditional techniques and the introduction of new methods for quantitative flaw characterization. An equivalent flaw sizing technique for use in time-of-flight diffraction setups is presented that provides an estimate of the size and orientation of isolated cracks, surface-breaking cracks, and volumetric flaws such as voids and inclusions. Experimental validation is provided for the isolated crack case. A quantitative imaging algorithm is developed that corrects for system effects and wave propagation, making the images formed directly related to the properties of the scatterer present. Simulated data is used to form images of cylindrical and spherical inclusions. The contributions of different signals to the image formation process are discussed and examples of the quantitative nature of the images are shown. |
