TY - CONF A1 - Grager, J.-C. A1 - Kotschate, Daniel A1 - Gamper, J. A1 - Gaal, Mate A1 - Pinkert, K. A1 - Mooshofer, H. A1 - Goldammer, M. A1 - Grosse, C. U. T1 - Advances in air-coupled ultrasonic testing combining an optical microphone with novel transmitter concepts N2 - Air-coupled ultrasound (ACU) is increasingly used for automated and contactless inspection of large-scale composite structures as well as for non-destructive testing (NDT) of water-sensitive or porous materials. The major challenge to overcome using ACU in NDT is the enormous loss of ultrasonic energy at each solid-air interface caused by the high acoustic impedance mismatch. Resonant low-frequency piezoceramic transducers are specially designed to achieve high sound pressure levels. For an expanded use of this technique, however, the spatial resolution needs to be increased. Recent studies of our collaborative research group demonstrated the successful application of a resonance-free, highly sensitive receiver that uses a Fabry-PĂ©rot etalon instead of piezoceramic materials or membranes. However, to reach the full potential of this broadband small-aperture optical microphone, novel transmitter concepts have to be developed and evaluated for advanced NDT applications. Different types of transmitter were tested in combination with the optical microphone acting as receiver and they were compared to conventional piezoceramic transducers in through-transmission mode. Monolithic carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP) and CFRP sandwich structures containing different defect types were inspected. Presented results are processed as C-scan images and further evaluated for spatial resolution, signal-to-noise ratio and sensitivity of each measurement setup. Novel transmitter concepts, such as ferroelectret and thermoacoustic emitters, show promising findings with a considerably improved time and spatial resolution for ACU-NDT. T2 - 12th European conference on Non-Destructive Testing CY - Gothenburg, Sweden DA - 11.06.2018 KW - Air-coupled ultrasonic testing KW - Optical microphone KW - Thermoacoustic KW - Cellular polypropylene KW - Ferroelectret KW - Transducer PY - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-452114 SP - ECNDT-0166-2018, 1 EP - 10 AN - OPUS4-45211 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schumacher, David A1 - Sharma, R. A1 - Grager, J.-C. A1 - Schrapp, M. T1 - Scatter and beam hardening reduction in industrial computed tomography using photon counting detectors N2 - Photon counting detectors (PCD) offer new possibilities for x-ray micro computed tomography (CT) in the field of non-destructive testing. For large and/or dense objects with high atomic numbers the problem of scattered radiation and beam hardening severely influences the image quality. This work shows that using an energy discriminating PCD based on CdTe allows to address these problems by intrinsically reducing both the influence of scattering and beam hardening. Based on 2D-radiographic measurements it is shown that by energy thresholding the influence of scattered radiation can be reduced by up to in case of a PCD compared to a conventional energy-integrating detector (EID). To demonstrate the capabilities of a PCD in reducing beam hardening, cupping artefacts are analyzed quantitatively. The PCD results show that the higher the energy threshold is set, the lower the cupping effect emerges. But since numerous beam hardening correction algorithms exist, the results of the PCD are compared to EID results corrected by common techniques. Nevertheless, the highest energy thresholds yield lower cupping artefacts than any of the applied correction algorithms. As an example of a potential industrial CT application, a turbine blade is investigated by CT. The inner structure of the turbine blade allows for comparing the image quality between PCD and EID in terms of absolute contrast, as well as normalized signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratio. Where the absolute contrast can be improved by raising the energy thresholds of the PCD, it is found that due to lower statistics the normalized contrast-to-noise-ratio could not be improved compared to the EID. These results might change to the contrary when discarding pre-filtering of the x-ray spectra and thus allowing more low-energy photons to reach the detectors. Despite still being in the early phase in technological progress, PCDs already allow to improve CT image quality compared to conventional detectors in terms of scatter and beam hardening reduction. KW - X-ray computed tomography KW - Photon counting detector KW - CdTe sensor KW - Non-destructive testing KW - Beam hardening KW - Scattered radiation PY - 2018 UR - http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6501/aabef7/meta U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6501/aabef7 SN - 1361-6501 VL - 29 IS - 7 SP - 075101, 1 EP - 12 PB - IOP Publishing CY - Bristol, UK AN - OPUS4-44959 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rus, J. A1 - Gustschin, A. A1 - Mooshofer, H. A1 - Grager, J.-C. A1 - Bente, Klaas A1 - Gaal, Mate A1 - Pfeiffer, F. A1 - Grosse, C. U. T1 - Qualitative comparison of non-destructive methods for inspection of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer laminates N2 - In the rapidly expanding composite industry, novel inspection methods have been developed in recent years. Particularly promising for air-coupled testing are cellular polypropylene transducers which offer better impedance matching to air than piezoelectric transducers. Furthermore, broadband transmitters (laser-induced ultrasound and thermoacoustic emitters) and receivers (optical microphones) have opened a completely new chapter for advanced contact-free ultra-sound inspection. X-ray dark-field radiography offers a different approach to detect porosity and microcracks, employing small angle X-ray scattering. These innovative ultrasonic and radiographic alternatives were evaluated in comparison with well-established inspection techniques. We applied thirteen different non-destructive methods to inspect the same specimen (a carbon fiber-reinforced polymer laminate with induced impact damage): air-coupled ultrasound testing (using piezoelectric transducers, broadband optical microphones, cellular polypropylene transducers, and a thermoa- coustic emitter), laser-induced ultrasound testing, ultrasonic immersion testing, phased array ultrasonic testing, optically excited lock-in thermography, and X-ray radiography (projectional absorption and dark-field, tomosynthesis, and micro-computed tomography). The inspection methods were qualitatively characterized by comparing the scan results. The conclusions are advantageous for a decision on the optimal method for certain testing constraints. KW - Carbon fiber-reinforced polymer KW - Air-coupled ultrasound KW - Optically excited lock-in thermography KW - X-ray micro-computed tomography KW - X-ray dark-field radiography PY - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-509473 SN - 0021-9983 VL - 54 IS - 27 SP - 4325 EP - 4337 PB - SAGE AN - OPUS4-50947 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -