Ultrasonic Testing of Mechanical Changes in a Water-Filled Pipe with Multi-Mode and Broadband Signals and Two-Level Compensation

Ultrasonic testing (UT) has been widely used for the Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) of pipes due to its many favorable characteristics. However, one of the main challenges in the general use of UT for real-world pipelines is the sensitivity of this method to environmental and operational condition...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2022-11, Vol.22 (22), p.8647
Main Authors: Ju, Taeho, Findikoglu, Alp T
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Broadband
broadband guided waves
environmental and operational conditions (EOC)
Environmental effects
Flow velocity
liquid-boundary effect
multi-mode guided waves
non-destructive evaluation (NDE)
Nondestructive testing
OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
pipe inspection
Point defects
Sensors
Signal processing
structural health monitoring (SHM)
Ultrasonic testing
Ultrasonic waves
Water flow
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Summary:Ultrasonic testing (UT) has been widely used for the Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) of pipes due to its many favorable characteristics. However, one of the main challenges in the general use of UT for real-world pipelines is the sensitivity of this method to environmental and operational condition changes. This paper proposes a new UT method with enhanced compensation for environmental effects and operational condition changes. In particular, the effectiveness of the new method is tested in the presence of temperature variations, and changes in water flow rate inside a stainless-steel pipe. The proposed UT method uses multi-mode and broadband guided ultrasonic waves in the pipe walls, excited and received by single-element ultrasonic sensors that are spatially separated, forming a measurement zone between any pair of such transmit and receive sensors. Amplitude changes, time shifts, and frequency content variations in the ultrasonic signal due to temperature changes and water flow are evaluated and compensated for reliable UT of mechanical changes in the pipe. It is observed that spurious effects of water flow on ultrasonic response, if not properly compensated, can dominate over effects due to actual mechanical changes, but such liquid-boundary effects can be compensated effectively by the proposed time- and frequency-filtering method.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s22228647