Development of Simplified Ultrasonic CT System for Imaging of Weld Metal and It's Comparison with TOFD Method

Abstract

In this paper, as a new measurement method to estimate the structure change of weld metal, the simplified ultrasonic CT system, which uses the information of three directions, that is, 90°, +45° and −45° about inspection plane is developed. Use of simplified ultrasonic CT system has two merits: Firstly, the measurement time is very short comparing with general CT. Secondly, it can detect sensitively very infinitesimal defect in vertical or slant direction about inspection plane because the obtained image is not C scan image but CT image calculated from three directions. From these merits, this method can be considered as a very effective method for the evaluation of material condition. In order to compare the performance of simplified ultrasonic CT, the CT image obtained from several specimens with several simple defects was compared with the D scan image obtained by TOFD (Time of Flight Diffraction) method. We can see simple defects more clearly by new proposed method. Experimental results on several kinds of specimen, having welded joint by electron beam welding, welded joint by electron beam welding and fatigue crack showed that the obtained C scan or CT image has better resolution than the D scan image by TOFD method and shows similar image to actual shape.