TY - CONF A1 - Schadow, Florian A1 - Gaal, Mate A1 - Bartusch, Jürgen A1 - Dohse, Elmar A1 - Köppe, Enrico T1 - Focusing air-coupled ultrasonic transducers based on ferroelectrets N2 - Rising importance of composite lightweight structures in aircraft and automobile industries increases the demand on reliable non-destructive testing methods for these structures. Air-coupled ultrasonic testing emerged to suit these requirements as it does not require any liquid coupling medium. In conventional air-coupled ultrasonic transducers, matching layers are used in order to decrease the impedance mismatch between transducer and air. Matching layers can be omitted by using ferroelectrets, which are charged cellular polymers having ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. Especially a low Young’s modulus, low density and low sound velocity of cellular polypropylene (cPP) are properties being required for well-matched air-coupled ultrasonic transducers. In our contribution we show recent enhancements of cPP transducers resulting in focused sound fields and thus improved lateral sensitivity. The influence of different transmitter apertures was evaluated using measurements of the emitted sound field. Further we show a transmission of a test specimen of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) containing artificial damages. Results of focused transducers were compared to planar ferroelectret transducers, as well as to conventional air-coupled transducers. T2 - WCNDT 2016 CY - München, Germany DA - 13.06.2016 KW - Air-coupled ultrasonic testing KW - Ferroelectrets KW - Cellular polypropylene KW - Focused sound fields KW - Carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-36562 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schadow, Florian A1 - Gaal, Mate T1 - Air-coupled ultrasonics: experimental realization N2 - This presentation is an overview of experimental realization of air-coupled ultrasonic testing. Focusing transducers based on ferroelectrets are presented. Inspection results of natural defects like impact damage and delamination of composite structures are shown and challenges relating to the propability of detection of defects are pointed out. T2 - Non-destructive testing of fiber reinforced polymers. Training course ultrasonics and active thermography CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 28.03.2017 KW - Air-coupled ultrasonic testing KW - Carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic KW - Glass-fiber-reinforced plastic KW - Natural defects PY - 2017 AN - OPUS4-39865 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -