Development of Ultrasonic Automatic Inspection Equipment for bridge welding

Abstract

Japan, the X-ray Test method has been applied for many years in the examination of welding. However, the Ultrasonic Test is more suitable for the welding of thick plate over 50mm. To increase the reliability of the Ultrasonic Test, it is necessary to improve the method of recording and also to improve the reproducibility of the result for examination. This paper will describe the newly developed Ultrasonic Test equipment which is capable of recording all of the examined data automatically. In addition, the paper will deal with the results of studies carried out to examine the accuracy of the equipment. In conclusion, the newly developed equipment displays high performance in the areas of speed, accuracy and reproducibility. Furthermore, the performance of the equipment to judge a welding defect can be confirmed by combination with the TRFD method.