The ultrasonic detection method has long been used in varied manners to detect hardware defects occurring in chemical plant equipment. It is in this line of endeavor that the present authors developed a multitransducer as means of detecting defects and flaws occurring at and near the surface.
This paper describes the construction and operation of the multitransduser, and discusses its characteristics as noted in the authors' experimental work involving artificially created defects (side holes and slits).
The multitransducer was built in three prototypes, each having its own angle of refraction, namely, 45°, 60°or 70°. As applied to the side holes, they were found to have focal points (or points of maximum sensitivity) of 5mm (45°), 3mm (60°) and 3mm (70°), respectively. As applied to the slits cut out in mildsteel plates of 2mm, 3mm and 5mm in thickness, they demonstrated detection with favorable signal-to-noise ratio over the range in which the focal point coincided with the plate thickness.
In the experimentation involving shallow slits, it was found that the effects of interference between incident wave and reflected wave must be taken into consideration. Finally, they were operated on specimens having cracks to result in an experimental finding that the multitransducer can satisfactorily detect cracks with a good signal-to-noise ratio.
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