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 - Schadow, Florian A1 - Brackrock, Daniel A1 - Gaal, Mate A1 - Heckel, Thomas T1 - Ultrasonic inspection and data analysis of glass- and carbon-fibre-reinforced plastics T2 - 3rd International Symposium on fatigue design and material defects (FDMD 2017) N2 - Non-destructive testing (NDT) helps to find material defects without having an influence on the material itself. It is applied as a method of quality control, for online structural health monitoring, and for inspection of safety related components. Due to the ability of automation and a simple test setup ultrasonic testing is one major NDT technique next to several existing options. Whereas contact technique allows the use of higher frequencies of some MHz and phased array focusing, air-coupled ultrasonic testing (ACUT) shows different advantages. Most significant for ACUT is the absence of any coupling fluid and an economical test procedure respective time and costs. Both contact technique and ACUT have been improved and enhanced during the past years. One important enhancement is the development of airborne transducers based on ferroelectrets, like charged cellular polypropylene (cpp), which makes the application of any matching layers being mandatory in conventional piezoelectric transducers unnecessary. In this contribution we show ultrasonic inspection results of specimens made of carbon- and glass-fibre-reinforced plastic. These specimens include defects represented by drill holes and artificial delaminations of various size and depth. We compare inspection results achieved by using contact technique to those achieved by ACUT. For ACUT, conventional piezoelectric transducers and transducers based on cpp were used, both focused as well as non-focused types. Contact inspections were performed with a multi-channel matrix array probe. Once the inspection data is recorded it can be analysed in order to detect and evaluate defects in the specimen. We present different analysing strategies and compare these regarding detection rate and sizing of defects. T2 - 3rd International Symposium on Fatigue Design and Material Defects, FDMD 2017 CY - Lecco, Italy DA - 19.09.2017 KW - Ultrasonic testing KW - Air-coupled KW - Carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic KW - Glass-fibre-reinforced KW - Material inspection KW - Defect sizing PY - 2017 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-434802 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prostr.2017.11.092 SN - 2452-3216 VL - 7 SP - 299 EP - 306 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-43480 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -