TY - CONF A1 - Gaal, Mate A1 - Dohse, Elmar A1 - Bartusch, Jürgen A1 - Köppe, Enrico A1 - Kreutzbruck, Marc A1 - Hillger, W. A1 - Amos, J. M. T1 - Ultrasonic testing of adhesively bonded joints using air-coupled cellular polypropylene transducers T2 - ECNDT 2014 - 11th European conference on non-destructive testing (Proceedings) N2 - In air-coupled ultrasonic testing, the impedance mismatch between the transducer and the air is commonly being solved by adding matching layers to composite transducers. To avoid the difficult technological procedure regarding matching layers, some new piezoelectric materials have been proposed. Most promising are ferroelectrets, which are charged cellular polymers, having ferroelectric and consequently piezoelectric properties. In particular, the extreme softness of cellular polypropylene (cPP) leads to a high piezoelectric constant and to a good impedance match with the air, making matching layers redundant. Its elasticity modulus below 1 MPa causes an additional effect not observed with common piezoelectric materials: that is the electrostrictive effect, here defined as the thickness change due to the attractive force between the transducer electrodes. This effect exceeds the piezoelectric effect at excitation voltages over 1 kV. The extreme softness of cPP leads also to high flexibility, enabling easy focusing by bending the transducer. We have developed air-coupled ultrasonic transducers based on cPP. This includes the electrical matching networks for the transmitter and for the receiver. The transmitter is excited with voltages up to 2.5 kV, so that the electrostrictive effect dominates, leading to sound pressure around 145dB at the transducer surface. These transducers have been applied for testing carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer plates, adhesive joints and other composite structures. Here we report about ultrasonic transmission of two types of adhesive joints. The first one is multi-layer aluminium components with some artificial disbonds, which are common in aerospace industry, and the second one is an aluminium-steel joint with polyurethane adhesive, which is used in automotive industry. T2 - ECNDT 2014 - 11th European conference on non-destructive testing CY - Prague, Czech Republic DA - 06.10.2014 KW - Air-coupled KW - Ultrasonic testing KW - Ferroelectret KW - Cellular polypropylene KW - Transducer KW - Adhesive joint PY - 2014 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-317204 SN - 978-80-214-5018-9 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - Brno University of Technology AN - OPUS4-31720 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Gaal, Mate A1 - Dohse, Elmar A1 - Bartusch, Jürgen A1 - Kreutzbruck, Marc T1 - Luftschallprüfung von CFK mit planaren und fokussierenden Wandlern T2 - DACH-Jahrestagung 2015 T2 - DACH-Jahrestagung 2015 CY - Salzburg, Austria DA - 2015-05-11 KW - Air-coupled KW - Ultrasonic testing KW - Ferroelectret KW - Cellular polypropylene KW - Transducer KW - Adhesive joint PY - 2015 SN - 978-3-940283-68-9 IS - DGZfP BB 152 SP - 1 EP - 9 AN - OPUS4-34629 LA - deu AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -