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It can be difficult to efficiently model ultrasonic waves in 3D structures, especially when the computational model needs to account for complex geometries. This contribution presents a solution based on the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM). It is a numerical tool suitable for elastodynamic problems. A space-tree discretisation, namely quad-trees, is used. This technique allows the decomposition of an image into quadrilaterals or quads, which are extruded to generate the 3D plate geometry. In particular, small quads resolve regions with discontinuities, allowing them to represent fine details in the structure. Moreover, this meshing technique allows for exploiting cell similarities, making the calculation procedure more efficient. The space-tree discretisations are generated from a high-resolution image containing all the information about damaged regions or boundary conditions. The resulting SBFEM polyhedral domains employ transition elements to ensure correct coupling between cells of different sizes. The analytical solution of a cylindrical scatterer serves as a reference to validate the proposed approach. Other examples also demonstrate the validity of the methodology and its flexibility.
The simulation of ultrasonic waves in a linearly elastic body can be computationally intensive. The reason is the relatively short wavelength compared to the body size for high frequencies. One possible approach to counteract the high computational costs is to decompose the domain into small parts and strive for parallelization. The Mortar Method is a well-established approach for domain decomposition.
A rather new approach to discretize the emerging subdomains is the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method. This semi-analytical method has many attractive properties. Some of these properties are listed subsequently. The grid consists of polygonal elements, which leaves much freedom in the meshing process. A variety of material distributions, including anisotropic materials, can be considered. High-order shape functions can be used for optimal convergence properties. The approach treats singularities at crack tips and corners analytically. Especially in the frequency domain, the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method reduces the dimension of the approximation because only degrees of freedom which are associated with the boundary of a polygonal element are necessary. Those desirable properties make the method particularly suitable for calculating the dynamic responses in bodies with cracks, as it is essential for many non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring applications.
In this contribution, we present a combination of the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method with the Mortar Method in two dimensions. The presentation starts with a theoretical overview of both approaches. Subsequently, numerical examples demonstrate the stability of the combination for the polygonal boundary of the elements. The numerical examples increase in complexity and are compared to results computed on non-divided domains with the Finite Element Method.
The Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) for prismatic structures is an efficient method for the simulation of acoustic behavior. Hence a further development of the method is of great interest. The wave propagation can be calculated for isotropic and anisotropic materials in solids. As for many applications the acoustic behavior in fluids and the behavior in case of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) is subject of research, the implementation of a fluid model in SBFEM for prismatic structures is needed. In case of FSI the coupling between fluid and solid domains can be performed without additional effort when describing both domains in the same variables. Hence a displacement-based fluid description is used. As the discretized formulation leads to spurious modes, a penalty method to suppress the unphysical behavior is chosen. To validate the derived model a comparison with analytical solutions of purely fluid domains is made. As to verify that in case of FSI the model shows the right behavior, dispersion curves of water-filled pipes are calculated and compared to results obtained with Comsol.
The Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method is known as an efficient method for the simulation of ultrasonic wave propagation. As to investigate acoustic wave behavior in case of fluid‐structure interaction, a fluid model is implemented in the SBFEM for prismatic structures. To omit coupling terms a displacement‐based formulation is used. Spurious modes, which occur in the solution, are suppressed using a penalty parameter. To verify this formulation dispersion curves obtained with Comsol Multiphysics are compared to results of SBFEM. The results of both methods are in very good agreement
This paper presents an approach to the automatic enrichment of finite elements in the vicinity of a stress singularity. The enrichment consists of semi-analytical singular modes constructed using the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM).
In contrast to analytical methods, the SBFEM provides modes for inhomogeneous and anisotropic materials without additional effort. The finite element basis can be of arbitrary order and remains unaltered by the enrichment. The approach requires enrichment in only one layer of elements around a node. Due to the compatibility of SBFEM with FEM, there is no Need for transitional elements, and there are no parasitic terms. The approach is tested for several benchmark problems. The stress intensity factors are computed based on techniques inspired by the SBFEM. The proposed procedure is compared to a Standard finite element implementation and shows a significant improvement in the error of the displacement field for problems involving singular stresses.
The applications of composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) in extreme conditions, such as storing hydrogen gases at very high pressure, impose new requirements related to the system's integrity and safety. The development of a structural health monitoring (SHM) system that allows for continuous monitoring of the COPVs provides rich information about the structural integrity of the component. Furthermore, the collected data can be used for different purposes such as increasing the periodic inspection intervals, providing a remaining lifetime prognosis, and also ensuring optimal operating conditions. Ultimately this information can be complementary to the development of the envisioned digital twin of the monitored COPVs. Guided waves (GWs) are preferred to be used in continuous SHM given their ability to travel in complex structures for long distances. However, obtained GW signals are complex and require advanced processing techniques. Machine learning (ML) is increasingly utilized as the main part of the processing pipeline to automatically detect anomalies in the system's integrity. Hence, in this study, we are scrutinizing the potential of using ML to provide continuous monitoring of COPVs based on ultrasonic GW data. Data is collected from a network of sensors consisting of fifteen Piezoelectric (PZT) wafers that were surface mounted on the COPV. Two ML algorithms are used in the automated evaluation procedure (i) a long short-term memory (LSTM) autoencoder for anomaly detection (defects/impact), and (ii) a convolutional neural network (CNN) model for feature extraction and classification of the artificial damage sizes and locations. Additional data augmentation steps are introduced such as modification and addition of random noise to original signals to enhance the model's robustness to uncertainties. Overall, it was shown that the ML algorithms used were able to detect and classify the simulated damage with high accuracy.
Reliability assessment of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems
poses new challenges pushing the research community to address many questions which are still open. For guided wave-based SHM it is not possible to evaluate the system performance without taking into account the target structure and applied system parameters. This range of variables would result in countless measurements.
Factors like environmental conditions, structural dependencies and wave characteristics demand novel solutions for performance analysis of SHM systems compared to those relying on classical non-destructive evaluation. Such novel approaches typically require model-assisted investigations which may not only help to explain and understand performance assessment results but also enable complete studies without costly experiments. Within this contribution, a multi input multi output approach using a sparse transducer array permanently installed on a composite structure to excite and sense guided waves is considered. Firstly, the method and the analysis of path-based performance assessment are presented considering an open-access dataset from the Open Guided Wave platform. Then, a performance analysis of a guided wave-based SHM system using Probability of Detection is presented. To explain some unexpected results, the model-assisted investigations are used to understand the physical phenomena of wave propagation in the test specimen including the interaction with damage. Finally, issues and future steps in SHM systems’ performance assessment and their development are discussed.
A novel approach for rating fatigue-initiating inclusions in highly demanding steel (INCAFAT)
(2018)
INCAFAT project aimed to improve existing fatigue damage models by establishing the most suitable combination of measurement techniques to characterise harmful inclusion populations in highly demanding steels. The different inclusion assessments carried out confirm that, chemical composition, secondary metallurgy and manufacturing route affect content, nature, size and shape of inclusions. According to the FEM model, inclusions produce an alteration of the stress field in their surrounding region, which can promote a fatigue failure. Experimental work on fatigue testing has demonstrated that depending on the stressed direction fatigue failures in highly demanding steels could be produced by different types of inclusions. Fractography analyses confirmed that meso-inclusions harmful in fatigue cannot be rated by standard methods, nor 10 MHz ultrasonic testing (macro) or micro-cleanness assessments. The necessity of rating these meso-inclusions has led to critical evaluation of Extreme Value Analysis according to ASTM E2283-08 and the development of high frequency immersion ultrasonic testing. EVA methodology based on inclusion width can be applied reliably when principal stress is parallel to the rolling direction. On the contrary, if inclusions are testing in the elongated directions its fails. On the other hand, the guidelines and recommendations for high frequency ultrasonic testing have been compiled in a new European standard draft. This method based on focal beam probes and high-resolution devices is able to provide information on meso-inclusion distribution.
We designed micro-hollow cathode discharge prototypes under atmospheric pressure and investi-gated their acoustic characteristics. For the acoustic model of the discharge, we correlated the self-organisation effect of the current density distribution with the ideal model of an acoustic membrane. For validation of the obtained model, sound particle velocity spectroscopy was used to detect and analyse the acoustic emission experimentally. The results have shown a behaviour similar to the ideal acoustic membrane. Therefore, the acoustic excitation is decomposable into its eigenfrequencies and predictable. The model was unified utilising the gas exhaust velocity caused by the electrohydrodynamic force. The results may allow a contactless prediction of the current density distribution by measuring the acoustic emission or using the micro-discharge as a tunable acoustic source for specific applications as well.
Acoustic emission testing
(2018)
Acoustic-structure interaction in the scaled boundary finite element method for primsatic geometries
(2019)
Due to the short wavelength compared to the dimensions of the structure, the simulation of ultrasonic waves is still a challenging task. A numerical method well suited for this purpose is the semi-analytical Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM). When applying this method, only the boundary of a computational domain is discretized using finite elements, while the interior is described by an analytical ansatz. Hence, the number of degrees of freedom is reduced significantly compared to the classical Finite Element Method (FEM).
In recent years, a particular formulation of the SBFEM for the simulation of ultrasonic guided waves was developed. The method constitutes an efficient algorithm for prismatic structures of arbitrary length, such as plates, pipes, or beams. Wave propagation phenomena in such structures can be modeled for isotropic and anisotropic inhomogeneous waveguides. Even though the method is an efficient tool for the simulation of guided waves in solid media, a reliable model for the simulation of acoustic wave propagation in fluids as well as acoustic-structure interaction in terms of SBFEM is still missing. In principle, the fluid can be described by a displacement-based formulation and thus be implemented in existing SBFEM algorithms for solid bodies. However, due to the discretization with classical finite elements, spurious modes occur, which cannot be separated from the physical modes straightforwardly. The spurious modes can be suppressed using a penalty parameter. Although very accurate results were achieved for some problems, this procedure has been proven unreliable for certain cases.
For this reason, we propose a different approach in this contribution. We employ a pressure model to simulate the acoustic behavior of fluids. The implementation of the pressure model results in a higher effort due to the necessity of incorporating coupling terms, but it presents a stable alternative without spurious modes. The accuracy of the method is demonstrated in comparison with analytical solutions and results obtained using the FEM.
Acoustic-structure interaction in the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method for primsatic geometries
(2019)
Due to the short wavelength compared to the dimensions of the structure, the simulation of ultrasonic waves is still a challenging task. A numerical method well suited for this purpose is the semi-analytical Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM). When applying this method, only the boundary of a computational domain is discretized using finite elements, while the interior is described by an analytical ansatz. Hence, the number of degrees of freedom is reduced significantly compared to the classical Finite Element Method (FEM).
In recent years, a particular formulation of the SBFEM for the simulation of ultrasonic guided waves was developed. The method constitutes an efficient algorithm for prismatic structures of arbitrary length, such as plates, pipes, or beams. Wave propagation phenomena in such structures can be modeled for isotropic and anisotropic inhomogeneous waveguides. Even though the method is an efficient tool for the simulation of guided waves in solid media, a reliable model for the simulation of acoustic wave propagation in fluids as well as acoustic-structure interaction in terms of SBFEM is still missing. In principle, the fluid can be described by a displacement-based formulation and thus be implemented in existing SBFEM algorithms for solid bodies. However, due to the discretization with classical finite elements, spurious modes occur, which cannot be separated from the physical modes straightforwardly. The spurious modes can be suppressed using a penalty parameter. Although very accurate results were achieved for some problems, this procedure has been proven unreliable for certain cases.
For this reason, we propose a different approach in this contribution. We employ a pressure model to simulate the acoustic behavior of fluids. The implementation of the pressure model results in a higher effort due to the necessity of incorporating coupling terms, but it presents a stable alternative without spurious modes. The accuracy of the method is demonstrated in comparison with analytical solutions and results obtained using the FEM.
Due to the multi-physical appearance of gas discharges the possibilities of interaction with their surrounding environment are very wide. Some of the most common applications are the surface or material modification and acting as an ion source for mass spectroscopy applications. Since atmosphere plasma generates a massive amount of thermal energy caused by collisions in the sheath, this temperature alternation is also able to produce acoustic waves in the ambient gas volume (as lightning and thunder), which is called thermoacoustic effect.
This talk presents an overview of the experimental acoustic analysis of surface dielectric barrier and micro hollow cathode discharges. Regarding other methods of acoustic excitation, the thermoacoustic approach benefits of its massless working principle and the proper impedance matching. In addition to the characterisation, possible applications (e.g. plasma acoustic loudspeaker or transducer for air-coupled ultrasonic testing) concerning these discharge types are presented.
Turbine blades for gas turbines are exposed to extreme working conditions in a demanding environment. In-service inspection, maintenance and refurbishment of the heavily stressed parts is necessary to ensure both safety and efficiency, e.g. based on immersion ultrasound testing (UT).
In the course of NDE 4.0, the European project MRO 2.0 aims to innovate the maintenance, repair and overhaul of turbine blades by linking these with modern digital methods. For this, the goal of this project is to go beyond conventional automated and manual UT testing techniques.
The aim is to measure the actual geometry and wall thickness of the complex shaped parts by applying an adaptive TFM that takes into account the refraction of the ultrasonic waves at the transition from the coupling material (water) to the inspected part (steel). In this setup the phased array probe is held by a robotic arm that allows the part to be scanned while remaining mainly perpendicular to the inspected surface. In this way, even complex geometries can be inspected and a 3D model of the actual condition of the part can be created.
The laboratory setup is equipped with a Vantage 64 phased array instrument from Verasonics Inc. and an industrial robot from ABB. A 64 element linear array probe operating at 10 MHz is attached to the robot.
The focus is on optimizing resolution, reliability and inspection speed, as the reconstructed model will be fed to the digital twin at a later stage of the project and used for targeted repairs. In addition to enhancing the reconstruction algorithms, required probe geometry and the parameters needed to inspect turbine blades with partially thin walls and anisotropic materials will also be investigated.
This talk will describe the 3-year project and present the results of the first year. The main focus will be on the development of the reconstruction algorithms used and the experimental setup.
In this study, we explored the detection of weak bonds (WBs) due to contamination and faulty curing (FC) using linear ultrasound and machine learning. For this purpose, aluminium single-lap adhesive joints containing three variants of bonding quality were investigated: perfect bond, WB due to release agent (RA) contamination, and WB due to FC. The data, according to the deviation of the bonding protocol, were arranged in two groups, creating two datasets: distinct and complete. Each dataset included all bonding conditions (perfect, RA, and FC), although the distinct dataset contained only marginal cases, which were expected to be well separable, whereas the complete dataset included data with minor deviations from the bonding protocol. Pulse-echo C-scan images were acquired for all prepared samples in the immersion tank, and 45 features were initially extracted from the time traces representing each bonding group. The initial data were analysed via a t-test and pairwise correlation analysis to reveal statistically significant features. Then, we performed dimensionality reduction using tree-based, recursive, sequential, and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) feature selectors to explore feature importance and classification accuracy with different feature subsets. Finally, the important features identified with the different feature selectors were fed to support vector machine (SVM) classifiers, and the classification accuracies were compared amongst the different feature subsets. The classification accuracy using a distinct dataset in some cases demonstrated nearly 99% accuracy, indicating that significant bonding protocol deviations could be easily detected. It was demonstrated that classification accuracy increased with the number of features. However, even in the case of the 2D feature space obtained using linear discriminant analysis, the bonding quality classification accuracy remained higher than 84%. The feature subspace reduction with LDA demonstrated sufficient classification accuracy and an improvement of nearly 40% in training time compared with that for the initial feature set. Thus, the classical ultrasonic pulse-echo C-scan with an LDA feature transformation and SVM classifier could be used to identify the deviations in the bonding protocol in aluminium single-lap adhesive joints.
Austenitic stainless steel welds as well as dissimilar metal welds with nickel alloy filler material, used in safety relevant parts of nuclear power plants, still challenge the ultrasonic inspection. The weld material forms large oriented grains which lead on the one hand to high sound scattering and on the other hand – to inhomogeneity and to the acoustic anisotropy of the weld structure. The ultrasonic wave fronts propagate not linearly, as in ferritic weld joints, but along the curves, which depend on the specific grain structure of the weld. Due the influence of these phenomena, it is difficult to analyze the inspection results and to classify the ultrasonic indications, which could be both from the weld geometry and from the material defects. A correct flaw sizing is not possible.
In an ongoing research project, different techniques to improve the reliability of ultrasonic testing at these kinds of welds are investigated. In a first step (in the previous research project) two ultrasonic inspection techniques were developed and validated on plane test specimens with artificial and realistic flaws. In the ongoing project, these techniques are applied to circumferential pipe welds with longitudinal and transverse flaws.
The technique developed at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Germany uses a combination of ray tracing and synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT). To investigate the unknown grain structure, the velocity distribution of weld-transmitting ultrasound waves is measured and used to model the weld by ray tracing.
The second technique, developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing (IZFP) in Germany, uses Sampling Phased Array (Full Matrix Capture) combined with the reverse phase matching (RPM) and the gradient elastic constant descent algorithm (GECDM). This inspection method is able to estimate the elastic constants of the columnar grains in the weld and offers an improvement of the reliability of ultrasonic testing through the correction of the sound field distortion. The unknown inhomogeneity and anisotropy are investigated using a reference indication and the special optimization algorithm.
Both reconstruction techniques give quantitative inspection results and allow the defect sizing. They have been compared to conventional ultrasonic testing with techniques, which are state of the art for components in nuclear power plants. The improvement will be quantified by the comparison of the probability of detection (POD) of each technique.
Austenitic stainless steel welds as well as dissimilar metal welds with nickel alloy filler material, used in safety relevant parts of nuclear power plants, still challenge the ultrasonic inspection. The weld material forms large oriented grains which lead on the one hand to high sound scattering and on the other hand – to inhomogeneity and to the acoustic anisotropy of the weld structure. The ultrasonic wave fronts propagate not linearly, as in ferritic weld joints, but along the curves, which depend on the specific grain structure of the weld. Due the influence of these phenomena, it is difficult to analyze the inspection results and to classify the ultrasonic indications, which could be both from the weld geometry and from the material defects. A correct flaw sizing is not possible.
In an ongoing research project, different techniques to improve the reliability of ultrasonic testing at these kinds of welds are investigated. In a first step (in the previous research project) two ultrasonic inspection techniques were developed and validated on plane test specimens with artificial and realistic flaws. In the ongoing project, these techniques are applied to circumferential pipe welds with longitudinal and transverse flaws.
The technique developed at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Germany uses a combination of ray tracing and synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT). To investigate the unknown grain structure, the velocity distribution of weld-transmitting ultrasound waves is measured and used to model the weld by ray tracing.
The second technique, developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing (IZFP) in Germany, uses Sampling Phased Array (Full Matrix Capture) combined with the reverse phase matching (RPM) and the gradient elastic constant descent algorithm (GECDM). This inspection method is able to estimate the elastic constants of the columnar grains in the weld and offers an improvement of the reliability of ultrasonic testing through the correction of the sound field distortion. The unknown inhomogeneity and anisotropy are investigated using a reference indication and the special optimization algorithm.
Both reconstruction techniques give quantitative inspection results and allow the defect sizing. They have been compared to conventional ultrasonic testing with techniques, which are state of the art for components in nuclear power plants. The improvement will be quantified by the comparison of the probability of detection (POD) of each technique.
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-Pérot 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.
Commercially available air-coupled transducers applied in non-destructive testing consist of a piezocomposite material and matching layers to reduce the impedance mismatch between the transducer and air. This contribution is an overview of innovative approaches using new piezoelectric materials and other physical principles to transmit and receive an ultrasonic pulse in air. Capacitive and piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs and PMUTs) produce high pressure levels, but they exhibit a very narrow bandwidth. Optical laser-based methods for transmitting and receiving ultrasound promise a higher bandwidth, but do not achieve the same sensitivity as conventional air-coupled transducers. Ferroelectrets are charged cellular polymers exhibiting piezoelectric properties, having a very small acoustic impedance well matched to air. Ferroelectret transducers achieve about the same bandwidth as the most broadband conventional air-coupled transducers, having a higher sensitivity. Thermoacoustic transducers use heat to initiate an acoustic wave, acting as transmitters in ultrasonic range. Thermoacoustic transducers enable excitation of extremely broadband pulses while producing high pressure levels, which opens new possibilities for advanced signal processing. The newest member of the family of air-coupled ultrasonic transmitters is the plasma-based transducer, using both the thermoacoustic effect and the movements of the ions (so called ionic wind) to create acoustic waves.
Conventional ultrasonic testing involves the application of a fluid couplant for impedance matching. Increasing use of lightweight structures, composite materials and adhesive joints mostly in aerospace and automotive industry created an increasing interest in air-coupled ultrasonic testing methods, to protect sensitive surfaces and simplify maintenance. Commercially available air-coupled transducers consist of a piezocomposite material and matching layers to reduce the impedance mismatch between the transducer and air. This contribution is an overview of innovative approaches using new piezoelectric materials and other physical principles to transmit and receive an ultrasonic pulse in air.
Capacitive and piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs and PMUTs) produce high pressure levels, but they exhibit a very narrow bandwidth. Optical laser-based methods for transmitting and receiving ultrasound promise a higher bandwidth, but do not achieve the same sensitivity as conventional air-coupled transducers. Ferroelectrets are charged cellular polymers exhibiting piezoelectric properties, having a very small acoustic impedance well matched to air. Ferroelectret transducers achieve about the same bandwidth as the most broadband conventional air-coupled transducers, having a higher sensitivity. Thermoacoustic transducers use heat to initiate an acoustic wave, acting as transmitters in ultrasonic range. Thermoacoustic transducers enable excitation of extremely broadband pulses while producing high pressure levels, which opens new possibilities for advanced signal processing. The newest member of the family of air-coupled ultrasonic transmitters is the plasma-based transducer, using both the thermoacoustic effect and the movements of the ions (so called ionic wind) to create acoustic waves.
Non-destructive testing of rail tracks is carried out by using rail inspection cars equipped with ultrasonic and eddy current measurement. The evaluation of test data is mainly done manually, supported by a software tool which pre-selects relevant indications shown to the evaluators. The resulting indications have to be checked on-site using hand-held testing equipment. Maintenance interventions are then derived on the basis of these on-site findings.
Overall aim of the AIFRI (Artificial Intelligence For Rail Inspection) project - funded by the German Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport (BMDV) as part of the mFUND programme under funding code 19FS2014 – is to increase the degree of automation of the inspection process from the evaluation of the data to the planning of maintenance interventions. The accuracy of defect detection shall be increased by applying AI methods in order to enable an automated classification of detected indications into risk classes. For this purpose, data from both eddy current inspections and ultrasonic inspections will be used in combination.
Within the framework of this data-driven project, relevant defect patterns and artefacts present in the rail are analysed and implemented into a configurable digital twin. With the help of this digital twin virtual defects can be generated and used to train AI algorithms for detection and classification. With the help of reliability assessment trained AI algorithms will be evaluated with regard to the resulting quality in defect detection and characterisation.
A particular aspect of the development of AI methods is the data fusion of different NDT data sources: Thereby, synergies are used that arise from linking eddy current and ultrasonic inspection data in a combined model.
In the course of the project a demonstrator consisting of the developed IT-tool and an asset management system will be implemented and tested in the field using real-world data.
High sensitivity is an important requirement for air-coupled ultrasonic sensors applied to materials testing. With a lower acoustic impedance than any piezoelectric material, charged cellular polypropylene (PP) offers better matching to air with a similar piezoelectric coefficient. The piezoelectric properties of charged cellular PP originate from their polarization, creating permanent internal voltage. The sensitivity of the sensor can be increased by applying additional dc bias voltage, as it has been done already for transmitters. This work presents the first ultrasonic sensor based on charged cellular PP including a high-voltage module providing dc bias voltage up to 2 kV. This bias voltage led to an increase in the signal-to-noise ratio of up to 15 ± 1 dB. The measurement of the received signal depending on the applied bias voltage is proposed as a new method of determining the internal voltage of ferroelectrets. The sensor combined with a cellular PP transmitter was applied to nondestructive testing of a rotor blade segment and glued-laminated timber, enabling imaging of the internal structure of these specimens with a thickness around 4 cm.
Common air-coupled transducers for non-destructive testing consist of a piezocomposite material and several matching layers. Better acoustical matching to air is achieved by transducers based on charged cellular polypropylene (PP). This material has about hundred times lower acoustic impedance than any piezocomposite, having about the same piezoelectric coefficient. The piezoelectric properties of cellular PP are caused by the polarization of air cells. Alternatively, a ferroelectret receiver can be understood as a capacitive microphone with internal polarization creating permanent internal voltage. The sensitivity of the receiver can be increased by applying additional bias voltage. We present an ultrasonic receiver based on cellular PP including a high-voltage module providing bias voltage up to 2 kV. The application of bias voltage increased the signal by 12 to 15 dB with only 1 dB increase of the noise.
This receiver was combined with a cellular PP transmitter in through transmission to inspect several test specimens consisting of glass-fiber-reinforced polymer face sheets and a porous closed-cell PVC core. These test specimens were inspected before and after load. Fatigue cracks in the porous PVC core and some fatigue damage in the face sheets were detected. These test specimens were originally developed to emulate a rotor blade segment of a wind power plant. Similar composite materials are used in lightweight aircrafts for the general aviation. The other inspected test specimen was a composite consisted of glass-fiber-reinforced polymer face sheets and a wooden core. The structure of the wooden core could be detected only with cellular PP transducers, while commercial air-coupled transducers lacked the necessary sensitivity. Measured on a 4-mm thick carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer plate, cellular PP transducers with additional bias voltage achieved a 32 dB higher signal-to-noise ratio than commercial air-coupled transducers.
Common air-coupled transducers for non-destructive testing consist of a piezocomposite material and several matching layers. Better acoustical matching to air is achieved by transducers based on charged cellular polypropylene (PP). This material has about hundred times lower acoustic impedance than any piezocomposite, having about the same piezoelectric coefficient. The piezoelectric properties of cellular PP are caused by the polarization of air cells. Alternatively, a ferroelectret receiver can be understood as a capacitive microphone with internal polarization creating permanent internal voltage. The sensitivity of the receiver can be increased by applying additional bias voltage. We present an ultrasonic receiver based on cellular PP including a high-voltage module providing bias voltage up to 2 kV. The application of bias voltage increased the signal by 12 to 15 dB with only 1 dB increase of the noise.
This receiver was combined with a cellular PP transmitter in through transmission to inspect several test specimens consisting of glass-fiber-reinforced polymer face sheets and a porous closed-cell PVC core. These test specimens were inspected before and after load. Fatigue cracks in the porous PVC core and some fatigue damage in the face sheets were detected. These test specimens were originally developed to emulate a rotor blade segment of a wind power plant. Similar composite materials are used in lightweight aircrafts for the general aviation. The other inspected test specimen was a composite consisted of glass-fiber-reinforced polymer face sheets and a wooden core. The structure of the wooden core could be detected only with cellular PP transducers, while commercial air-coupled transducers lacked the necessary sensitivity. Measured on a 4-mm thick carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer plate, cellular PP transducers with additional bias voltage achieved a 32 dB higher signal-to-noise ratio than commercial air-coupled transducers.
The use of composite materials has been steadily growing during the last decades, as well as the requirements on quality, mechanical properties and geometries of the parts. Some processes, like the 3D UV pultrusion process, manufacture parts that are long and thin, whilst having a varying curvature radius along the same part or even no curvature at all. Studying their mechanical properties along the main fiber direction, which is of foremost interest, is not an easy task nor efficient with most nondestructive methods. The use of air-coupled ultrasonics to evaluate the properties of composite materials has been widely proved by several authors, mainly using guided waves that provide information on the orthotropic properties of this kind of materials. Most of this work has focused on analyzing straight plate-like geometries, due to the simplicity to generate desired Lamb modes in the plate and analyze the behavior of guided waves inside the plate. In our contribution, the differences in the propagation of Lamb waves for straight and curved geometry glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP) have been analyzed. A GFRP test sample cured with UV light with one straight and one curved area has been evaluated. The responses of the generated Lamb wave modes for the straight and curved geometries have been compared, accounting for variations in the transducer characteristics, e.g. resonance behavior and focusing.
Air-coupled ultrasound was used for assessing natural defects in wood boards by through-transmission scanning measurements. Gas matrix piezoelectric (GMP) and ferroelectret (FE) transducers were studied. The study also included tests with additional bias voltage with the ferroelectret receivers. Signal analyses, analyses of the measurement dynamics and statistical analyses of the signal parameters were conducted. After the measurement series, the samples were cut from the measurement regions and the defects were analyzed visually from the cross sections. The ultrasound responses were compared with the results of the visual examination of the cross sections. With the additional bias voltage, the ferroelectret measurement showed increased signal-to-noise ratio, which is especially important for air-coupled measurement of high-attenuation materials like wood. When comparing the defect response of GMP and FE sensors, it was found that FE sensors had more sensitive dynamic range, resulting from better s/n ratio and short response pulse. Classification test was made to test the possibility of detecting defects in sound wood. Machine learning methods including decision trees, k-nearest neighbor and support vector machine were used. The classification accuracy varied between 72 and 77% in the tests. All the tested machine learning methods could be used efficiently for the classification.
Modern and energy-efficient materials are essential for innovative designs for aerospace and automotive industries. Current technologies for rapid manufacturing such as additive manufacturing and liquid composite moulding by polymer Extrusion allow innovative ways of creating robust and lightweight constructions. Commercially available printing devices often use polylactide (PLA) or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) as raw material. Therefore, parameters like the infill ratio, influencing the ability to resist mechanical stress, may have a beneficial impact on the lifetime of components.
These manufacturing technologies require a good knowledge about materials and even adapted non-destructive testing technologies and methods. Airborne ultrasonic testing has beneficial advantages for testing those lightweight constructions. It is a contact-free testing method, which does not require a liquid couplant. Therefore, it allows fast test cycles without any unwanted alternations of the material properties due to interactions with any coupling liquid. This contribution deals with the characterisation of printed specimens based on PLA by using airborne ultrasound and presents the current edge of non-destructive testing and evaluation using airborne ultrasonic transducers. The specimens, manufactured by polymer extrusion, are printed as thin plates. The infill ratio, as well as the material thickness, were varied to model density imperfections with different geometric shapes and properties. For better understanding of the limits of airborne ultrasonic testing in transmission, we compared own-developed transducers based on different physical principles: on ferroelectrets, on the thermoacoustic effect, as well as a new type of transducers based on gas discharges.
Modern and energy-efficient materials are essential for innovative designs for aerospace and automotive industries. Current technologies for rapid manufacturing such as additive manufacturing and liquid composite moulding by polymer Extrusion allow innovative ways of creating robust and lightweight constructions. Commercially available printing devices often use polylactide (PLA) or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) as raw material. Therefore, parameters like the infill ratio, influencing the ability to resist mechanical stress, may have a beneficial impact on the lifetime of components.
These manufacturing technologies require a good knowledge about materials and even adapted non-destructive testing technologies and methods. Airborne ultrasonic testing has beneficial advantages for testing those lightweight constructions. It is a contact-free testing method, which does not require a liquid couplant. Therefore, it allows fast test cycles without any unwanted alternations of the material properties due to interactions with any coupling liquid. This contribution deals with the characterisation of printed specimens based on PLA by using airborne ultrasound and presents the current edge of non-destructive testing and evaluation using airborne ultrasonic transducers. The specimens, manufactured by polymer extrusion, are printed as thin plates. The infill ratio, as well as the material thickness, were varied to model density imperfections with different geometric shapes and properties. For better understanding of the limits of airborne ultrasonic testing in transmission, we compared own-developed transducers based on different physical principles: on ferroelectrets, on the thermoacoustic effect, as well as a new type of transducers based on gas discharges.
Aktuelle Entwicklungen der Wirbelstrom- und Ultraschallprüfung an verlegten Eisenbahnschienen
(2019)
Die kombinierte Schienenprüfung mit Wirbelstrom und Ultraschall ermöglicht eine ganzheitliche Detektion von Inhomogenitäten im Kopf und Steg der Schiene und gewährleistet das Auffinden sowohl von Volumen-als auch Oberflächeneffekten wie z. B. Head Checks. Für die verbesserte Detektion von Rollkontaktermüdung (rolling contact fatique, RCF) und den daraus resultierenden Schienenfehlern (Head-Checks, Squats, Riffel, …) wurde für die Wirbelstromprüfung der Prüfbereich auf die gesamte Rollkontaktfläche erweitert. Der Fokus liegt im Neudesign der Wirbelstrom-Prüfvorrichtung und der damit verbundenen normgerechten Auslegung der Konstruktion für die fahrzeugspezifischen Gegebenheiten. Ferner wurde die Anwendersoftware des kombinierten Prüfsystems vereinheitlicht. Um die wirtschaftliche Effektivität unsere Prüftechnik zu steigern, wird die Multiplex-Gerätetechnologie in die automatisierte Schienenprüfung eingeführt. Damit wird der freizuhaltende Einbauraum innerhalb der Fahrzeuge sowie Kabelwege deutlich reduziert. Durch den Übergang zu der Multiplextechnologie wurde weiterhin die Stromaufnahme um mehr als 50% reduziert.
Aktuelles aus der Normung
(2022)
Akustische Verfahren eignen sich hervorragend zur Bestimmung der Werkstoffeigenschaften. Die Verfügbarkeit derartiger Verfahren ist vor allem für Kunststoffe wichtig, da deren Eigenschaften stark abhängig vom jeweiligen Herstellungsprozess und vom Alterungszustand sind. Exakte und vollständige Werte sind daher in Datenbanken oder von Herstellern nur begrenzt zu finden. Insbesondere die Entwicklung von Methoden zur Charakterisierung faserverstärkter Kunststoffe (FKV) ist nach wie vor Gegenstand der Forschung. Hier müssen anisotropiebedingt mehrere Kennwerte bestimmt werden. Da FKV zumeist als dünnwandige Bauteile zum Einsatz kommen, können die Werkstoffparameter aus den Dispersionseigenschaften der Lamb-Wellen, die sich in diesen Strukturen ausbreiten, abgeleitet werden. Dazu ist eine räumliche Abtastung des sich ausbreitenden Schallfelds erforderlich.
In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird dieser Ansatz für die relativ neue Werkstoffklasse der faserverstärkten Thermoplaste angewendet. Diese zeichnet ein ausgeprägtes Dämpfungsverhalten und eine Anisotropie der Materialparameter aus. Dazu wurde das Schallfeld im Ultraschallbereich mit einem Laser-Doppler-Vibrometers vermessen. Rechnerisch bestimmte Dispersionskurven wurden dann an die gemessenen Werte angepasst, womit die richtungsabhängigen Materialparameter bestimmt werden konnten.
Im Vortrag wird das Messverfahren vorgestellt und auf spezielle Probleme, die sich z.B. aus dem Dämpfungsverhalten des Werkstoffs ergeben, eingegangen. Ausgewählte gemessene Werte werden mit den Ergebnissen von Referenzverfahren verglichen.
Akustische Bestimmung der Werkstoffparameter faserverstärkter Kunststoffe mittels geführter Wellen
(2021)
Akustische Verfahren eignen sich hervorragend zur Bestimmung der Werkstoffeigenschaften. Die Verfügbarkeit derartiger Verfahren ist vor allem für Kunststoffe wichtig, da deren Eigenschaften stark abhängig vom jeweiligen Herstellungsprozess und vom Alterungszustand sind. Exakte und vollständige Werte sind daher in Datenbanken oder von Herstellern nur begrenzt zu finden. Insbesondere die Entwicklung von Methoden zur Charakterisierung faserverstärkter Kunststoffe (FKV) ist nach wie vor Gegenstand der Forschung. Hier müssen anisotropiebedingt mehrere Kennwerte bestimmt werden. Da FKV zumeist als dünnwandige Bauteile zum Einsatz kommen, können die Werkstoffparameter aus den Dispersionseigenschaften der Lamb-Wellen, die sich in diesen Strukturen ausbreiten, abgeleitet werden. Dazu ist eine räumliche Abtastung des sich ausbreitenden Schallfelds erforderlich.
In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird dieser Ansatz für die relativ neue Werkstoffklasse der faserverstärkten Thermoplaste angewendet. Diese zeichnet ein ausgeprägtes Dämpfungsverhalten und eine Anisotropie der Materialparameter aus. Dazu wurde das Schallfeld im Ultraschallbereich mit einem Laser-Doppler-Vibrometers vermessen. Rechnerisch bestimmte Dispersionskurven wurden dann an die gemessenen Werte angepasst, womit die richtungsabhängigen Materialparameter bestimmt werden konnten.
Im Vortrag wird das Messverfahren vorgestellt und auf spezielle Probleme, die sich z.B. aus dem Dämpfungsverhalten des Werkstoffs ergeben, eingegangen. Ausgewählte gemessene Werte werden mit den Ergebnissen von Referenzverfahren verglichen.
In diesem Vortrag werden die aktuellen Techniken für die angewandte mechanisierte Schienenprüfung dargestellt und Perspektiven für die Zukunft der handgeführten und fahrzeuggeführten Prüftechnik aufgezeigt. Insbesondere wird hier die bildhafte Darstellung, der zusätzliche Nutzen von Arraysensoren sowie die Möglichkeiten der Simulation von Schienenfehlern vorgestellt.
An approach to adhesive bond characterisation using guided acoustic waves in multi-layered plates
(2021)
An approach for the non-destructive characterisation of adhesive bonds using guided ultrasonic waves is presented. Pulsed laser radiation is used to thermoacoustically excite broadband ultrasonic waves in a multi-layered sample, consisting of a metal plate adhesively joined to a polymeric layer using synthetic resin. The resulting signals are received by a purpose-built piezoelectric transducer. Varying the distance between excitation and detection yields spatio-temporal measurement data, from which the dispersive properties of the propagating waves can be inferred using a two-dimensional Fourier transform, assuming the plates to act as coupled waveguides. Coupled multi-layered waveguides show an effect referred to as mode repulsion, where the distance between certain modes in the frequency-wavenumber domain is assumed to be a measure of coupling strength. Measurements at different stages of curing of the adhesive layer are performed and evaluated. A comparison of the results shows changes in the dispersive properties, namely an increased modal bandwidth for the fully cured sample as well as an increased modal distance.
Human factors (HF) are little understood, and particularly in non-destructive testing (NDT) experimental data is rare, samples are often small, and statistical methods are rarely used to evaluate results. HF have been widely implicated in major occurrences of technical failure, for example at North Anna Power Plant and on United Airlines Flight 232. Understanding HF is vital for reliable detection and prevention of failures. Reliability assessments, though known to be affected by intrinsic capability, application factors, and HF, have thus far only concentrated to a sufficient degree on intrinsic capability. The addition of HF to that assessment has proven difficult due to the lack of a method of quantifying HF. This paper presents the first attempt from a psychological perspective to quantify HF from qualitative data.
HF data was derived from qualitative human-oriented Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (Human-FMEA) workshops for visual inspection of tunnels by laser scanning and for ultrasonic testing of welds. Data was collected on human failure modes, causes, consequences and preventive measures, as well as eliciting a risk priority number (RPN). Using this data, a system of quantitative weightings was created to allocate errors to inductively derived HF categories for further allocation to existing HF categorisation models.
This weighting model proved useful for creating quantitative summaries of HF, informing and validating qualitative FMEA results, and comparing existing HF categorisation models. Further potential lies within a planned interface to quantitative reliability assessment methods such as POD (Probability of Detection). While providing quantifications, the method retains a qualitative and holistic nature, can, thus, bridge the gap between psychological and engineering concerns of HF and reliability, contributing to future interdisciplinary work.
Composite-Druckbehälter werden für Speicherung und Transport von Gasen unter hohem Druck verwendet. Durch die gewichtssparende Struktur, die aus einem dünnwandigem Metallgefäß und Faserverbundwerkstoff-Ummantelung besteht, sind solche Behälter insbesondere für die Luftfahrt- und Automobilindustrie interessant, z.B. als Wasserstoffspeicher.
Die Druckprüfung ist ein konventioneller Test, um die Integrität von Metalldruckbehältern zu bewerten. Im Falle des Composite-Druckbehälters könnte eine solche Prüfung jedoch den Faserverbundwerkstoff überbeanspruchen und somit die verbleibende Lebensdauer der getesteten Komponente verringern. Infolgedessen ist es notwendig, Verfahren zur zerstörungsfreien Prüfung und möglicherweise zur Zustandsüberwachung von Composite-Druckbehältern zu entwickeln. Unser Ansatz verwendet geführte Ultraschallwellen und hat das Potenzial, kritische Schäden wie Risse im Metall und Faserbrüche und Matrixrisse in Faserverbundwerkstoff zu detektieren.
In diesem Beitrag wurde die Scaled Boundary Finite Elemente Methode benutzt, um die multimodale, geführte Wellenausbreitung in einem Mehrschichtverbund, der aus Metall und Kohlenfaserverbund entsteht, zu analysieren. Das Verfahren ermöglicht die Identifizierung geeigneter Wellenmoden und die Analyse ihrer Interaktion mit verschiedenen Schäden. Diese Kenntnisse sollen für die Entwicklung von Verfahren zur Zustandsüberwachung von Composite-Druckbehältern angewendet werden.
Guided waves (GW) are of great interest for non-destructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) of engineering structures such as for oil and gas pipelines, rails, aircraft components, adhesive bonds and possibly much more. Development of a technique based on GWs requires careful understanding obtained through modelling and analysis of wave propagation and mode-damage interaction due to the dispersion and multimodal character of GWs. The Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) is a suitable numerical approach for this purpose allowing calculation of dispersion curves, mode shapes and GW propagation analysis. In this article, the SBFEM is used to analyse wave propagation in a plate consisting of an isotropic aluminium layer bonded as a hybrid to an anisotropic carbon fibre reinforced plastics layer. This hybrid Composite corresponds to one of those considered in a Type III composite pressure vessel used for storing gases, e.g., hydrogen in automotive and aerospace applications. The results show that most of the wave energy can be concentrated in a certain layer depending on the mode used, and by that damage present in this layer can be detected. The results obtained help to understand the wave propagation in multi-layered structures and are important for further development of NDT and SHM for Engineering structures consisting of multiple layers.
Lamb waves are widely used for non-destructive evaluation of material parameters as well as for detection of defects. Another application of Lamb waves is quality control of adhesive joints.
Researchers are currently investigating shear horizontal and zero-group velocity modes for characterisation of the adhesive bonding strength. In a new approach, Lamb wave mode repulsion is used to obtain the coupling strength between different layers to characterise the adhesive bonding strength. The modes of the individual layers become coupled in the multilayered systems forming particular regions, the so-called mode repulsion regions. This study investigates these modes and their interaction in two-layered plate-like structures with varying coupling strength both numerically, with the Scaled Boundary FEM, and experimentally.
Lamb waves are widely used for non-destructive evaluation of material parameters as well as for detection of defects. Another application of Lamb waves is quality control of adhesive joints.
Researchers are currently investigating shear horizontal and zero-group velocity modes for characterisation of the adhesive bonding strength. In a new approach, Lamb wave mode repulsion is used to obtain the coupling strength between different layers to characterise the adhesive bonding strength. The modes of the individual layers become coupled in the multilayered systems forming particular regions, the so-called mode repulsion regions. This study investigates these modes and their interaction in two-layered plate-like structures with varying coupling strength both numerically, with the Scaled Boundary FEM, and experimentally
The application of temperature compensation strategies is crucial in structural health monitoring approaches based on guided waves. Actually, the varying temperature influences the performance of the inspection system inducing false alarms or missed detection, with a consequent reduction of reliability and impact on probability of detection (POD).
This paper quantitatively describes two different methods to compensate the temperature effect, namely the optimal baseline selection (OBS) and the baseline signal stretch (BSS) extending their application to the case of a distributed sensor networks (DSN). This latter introduces a number of possible data to explore compensation strategies which do not necessarily returns univocal results. Hence, a decision framework is needed, which takes into consideration multiple ultrasonic time traces with different arrival times and amplitude. In detail, the effect of temperature separation between baseline time-traces in OBS are investigated considering multiple couples of sensors employed in the DSN. A combined strategy that uses both OBS and a frequent value warning is introduced to find the more probable temperature with increasing reliability of the assessment. The same procedure is applied using the BSS algorithm. Finally, the use of both approaches is introduced, comparing the capability of the mixed algorithm to correctly sort temperature information from OBS and then apply the BSS combining the frequent value warning to have a unique correction all over the DSN.
Theoretical results are compared, using data from two several experiments, which use different frequency analysis with either predominantly A0 mode or S0 mode data or both. The focus is given on the fact that different paths are available in a sensor network and several possible combinations of results are available. Nonetheless, introducing a frequent value warning it is possible to increase the efficiency of the OBS and BSS approaches making use of fewer signal processing algorithms. These confirm that the performance of OBS quantitatively agrees with predictions. In addition, the possibility to combine BSS approached also demonstrates that the use of compensation strategies improves detectability and localization of damage even in a DSN. This result can be used to improve the SHM system reliability, with promising perspectives in increasing POD.
Seit Jahren stellt die luftgekoppelte Ultraschallprüfung eine etablierte Alternative zur konventionellen Prüfung von Leichtbaukomponenten aus den Bereichen Luft- und Raumfahrt sowie Automotive dar. Im Gegenteil zur flüssigkeitsgekoppelten Prüfung in Kontakt oder im Tauchbecken ist sie weniger invasiv und bietet daher zeitliche und finanzielle Anreize.
Normalerweise wird die luftgekoppelte Prüfung mit Einzelelementschwingern in Durchschallung realisiert, wohingegen die Gruppenstrahlertechnik bereits Industriestandard im Bereich der Kontakttechnik darstellt. Die damit verbundenen Vorteile wie die aktive Fokussierung oder, die gezielte Manipulation des Einschallwinkels zur Anregung von geführten Wellen, finden im Bereich der luftgekoppelten Prüfung dabei noch wenig Anwendung.
Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags stellen wir die ersten Zwischenergebnisse des geförderten Projektes „PALUP – Phased- Array-Technik für Luftultraschall-Prüfungen“ vor. Ziel des Projektes ist die Entwicklung von Mehrelementschwingern auf Basis von zellulären Kunststoffen, die Entwicklung einer dedizierten Pulserstufe im Kilovoltbereich, sowie die nötige rauscharme messtechnische Auswertung jedes Einzelelements.
Seit Jahren stellt die luftgekoppelte Ultraschallprüfung eine etablierte Alternative zur konventionellen Prüfung von Leichtbaukomponenten aus den Bereichen Luft- und Raumfahrt sowie Automotive dar. Im Gegenteil zur flüssigkeitsgekoppelten Prüfung in Kontakt oder im Tauchbecken ist sie weniger invasiv und bietet daher zeitliche und finanzielle Anreize.
Normalerweise wird die luftgekoppelte Prüfung mit Einzelelementschwingern in Durchschallung realisiert, wohingegen die Gruppenstrahlertechnik bereits Industriestandard im Bereich der Kontakttechnik darstellt. Die damit verbundenen Vorteile wie die aktive Fokussierung oder, die gezielte Manipulation des Einschallwinkels zur Anregung von geführten Wellen, finden im Bereich der luftgekoppelten Prüfung dabei noch wenig Anwendung.
Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags stellen wir die ersten Zwischenergebnisse des geförderten Projektes „PALUP – Phased- Array-Technik für Luftultraschall-Prüfungen“ vor. Ziel des Projektes ist die Entwicklung von Mehrelementschwingern auf Basis von zellulären Kunststoffen, die Entwicklung einer dedizierten Pulserstufe im Kilovoltbereich, sowie die nötige rauscharme messtechnische Auswertung jedes Einzelelements.
Overview about modelling, simulations and measurement of acoustic interactions caused by surface dielectric barrier discharges, micro hollow cathode discharges and plasma jets.
Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts "Artificial Intelligence for Rail Inspection" (AIFRI) wird ein KI-Algorithmus entwickelt, um die Fehlererkennung bei der Auswertung von Schienenprüfungen zu verbessern. Der Prozess der mechanisierten Schienenprüfung wird analysiert und die Schienenfehler sowie Artefakte werden in einem digitalen Zwilling abgebildet, um in einem weiteren Schritt die automatische Fehlererkennung und Klassifizierung mit KI-Algorithmen trainieren zu können. Zu diesem Zweck werden Ultraschalldatensätze auf der Grundlage der Regelwerke und Informationen aus der Instandhaltung mit einer Simulationssoftware erstellt, die Anzeigen der verschiedenen Schienenschädigungen und Artefakte enthalten.
Die Schienenfehler werden bei der Auswertung in Fehlerklassen eingeordnet, für das KI-Training priorisiert und auf Basis der von der DB Netz AG ausgewählten Informationen untersucht. Hierfür werden die Schienenfehler nach den für das KI-Training relevanten Merkmalen zerlegt und die Konfiguration der Parameter der Simulation entsprechend abgestimmt.
Für die Grundstruktur des Datensatzes wird ein Schienenmodell mit einer Länge von einem Meter für die Simulation eingesetzt, auf dessen Basis alle bei der Schienenprüfung zu verwendenden Prüfköpfe für den jeweiligen Reflektortyp betrachtet werden. Die simulierten Daten werden auf einer Testschiene im Labormaßstab validiert. Mögliche Einflussparameter wie z. B. der Signal-Rausch-Abstand sowie die Fahrgeschwindigkeit werden in den Datensätzen herangezogen. Die Zusammenstellung eines Testdatensatzes mit lokal veränderlichen Einflussgrößen erfolgt aus den simulierten Daten unter Verwendung der skriptbasierten Programmierumgebung Python und Matlab.
Das Projekt AIFRI wird im Rahmen der Innovationsinitiative mFUND unter dem Förderkennzeichen 19FS2014 durch das Bundesministerium für Digitales und Verkehr gefördert.
This paper presents an automatic damage imaging technique by employing a signal processing approach based on applying hierarchically clustered filters across different domains. The technique involves time-frequency-wavenumber filter banks which are applied sequentially to ultrasonic guided wave (UGW) data. The study is conducted for a single lap joint composite specimen with a special focus on small voids which were formed due to manual adhesive component mixing. UGW data are acquired with a 3D Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV) over the scan area of the bonded plate. UGWs are excited at the central frequency of 100 kHz by a single piezoelectric transducer mounted on the surface of the single plate. Within each domain of time, frequency, and wavenumber, four filters are designed which results in 64 distinct filtered wavefields. From each filtered wavefield, an image is obtained by using root-mean-square (RMS) calculation of the signals. The obtained results are then combined to create a final, improved-resolution image of the scan area. The final image is compared to the image obtained through RMS calculation of full wavefield with interpolation through Delaunay triangulation and the image obtained by X-ray radiography. The results show that the smallest void that could be detected has a diameter of 2.14 mm.
Magneto resistance sensors like GMR (giant magneto resistance) or TMR (tunnel magneto resistance) are widely used in industrial applications, examples are position measurement and read heads of hard disk drives. However, in case of non-destructive testing (NDT) applications these sensors, although their properties are outstanding like high spatial resolution, high field sensitivity, low cost and low energy consumption, never reached a technical transfer to an application beyond sci-entific scope.
This paper deals with benefits of GMR/TMR sensors in terms of high spatial resolution testing for different NDT applica-tions. The first example demonstrates the preeminent advantages of MR-elements compared with conventional coils used in eddy current testing (ET). The probe comprises one-wire excitation with an array of MR elements. This led to a better spatial resolution in terms of neighboring defects.
The second section concentrates on MFL-testing (magnetic flux leakage) with active field excitation during and before test-ing. The latter illustrated the capability of highly resolved crack detection of a crossed notch. This example is best suited to show the ability of tiny magnetic field sensors for magnetic material characterization of a sample surface. Another example is based on characterization of samples after tensile test. Here, no external field is applied. The magnetization is only changed due to external load and magnetostriction leading to a field signature which GMR sensors can resolve. This gives access to internal changes of the magnetization state of the sample under test.
Bestimmung der Rissgeometrie bei der zerstörungsfreien Ultraschallprüfung mit geführten Wellen
(2019)
In der zerstörungsfreien Prüfung werden in zunehmendem Maße geführte Ultraschallwellen zur Lokalisation von Fehlstellen genutzt. Geführte Ultraschallwellen zeichnen sich dadurch aus, dass sie große Distanzen innerhalb des zu prüfenden Bauteiles zurücklegen können. Das Ultraschallwellenfeld setzt sich dabei aus verschieden Moden zusammen. Etablierte Prüfverfahren mit geführten Wellen ermitteln häufig nur die Position der Fehlstelle, wobei die Laufzeiten der reflektierten Signale ausgewertet wird. Modenumwandlung bleibt dabei zumeist unberücksichtigt.
Die Charakterisierung der Fehlstelle, zum Beispiel hinsichtlich der Länge eines Risses, ist dagegen herausfordernd. Aussagekräftige Zusammenhänge zwischen der Dimension oder Geometrie der Fehlstelle und ihrer Interaktion mit der Ultraschallwelle zu finden, ist Teil aktueller Forschung. Insbesondere eine Betrachtung der Moden höherer Ordnung und deren Amplitudenverhältnisse kann beim Aufspüren dieser Zusammenhänge hilfreich sein.
Im Beitrag werden zunächst die Zusammenhänge zwischen den beiden fundamentalen Moden in einer isotropen Platte und der Länge eines Risses untersucht. Aus den Ergebnissen wird ein inverses Verfahren motiviert. Ein Algorithmus wird vorgestellt, der die Risslänge im Modell solange variiert, bis er die modalen Zusammenhänge einer Vorgabe oder einer Messung rekonstruiert. Die eingesetzte Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method ermöglicht dabei eine sehr kurze Rechenzeit in jeden Optimierungsschritt. Zusätzlich ermöglicht die Methode eine Auswertung der modalen Zusammenhänge ohne Postprocessing, was die Rechenzeiten weiter verkürzt.
Bestimmung der Rissgeometrie bei der zerstörungsfreien Ultraschallprüfung mit geführten Wellen
(2019)
In der zerstörungsfreien Prüfung werden in zunehmendem Maße geführte Ultraschallwellen zur Lokalisation von Fehlstellen genutzt. Geführte Ultraschallwellen zeichnen sich dadurch aus, dass sie große Distanzen innerhalb des zu prüfenden Bauteiles zurücklegen können. Das Ultraschallwellenfeld setzt sich dabei aus verschieden Moden zusammen. Etablierte Prüfverfahren mit geführten Wellen ermitteln häufig nur die Position der Fehlstelle, wobei die Laufzeiten der reflektierten Signale ausgewertet wird. Modenumwandlung bleibt dabei zumeist unberücksichtigt.
Die Charakterisierung der Fehlstelle, zum Beispiel hinsichtlich der Länge eines Risses, ist dagegen herausfordernd. Aussagekräftige Zusammenhänge zwischen der Dimension oder Geometrie der Fehlstelle und ihrer Interaktion mit der Ultraschallwelle zu finden, ist Teil aktueller Forschung. Insbesondere eine Betrachtung der Moden höherer Ordnung und deren Amplitudenverhältnisse kann beim Aufspüren dieser Zusammenhänge hilfreich sein.
Im Beitrag werden zunächst die Zusammenhänge zwischen den beiden fundamentalen Moden in einer isotropen Platte und der Länge eines Risses untersucht. Aus den Ergebnissen wird ein inverses Verfahren motiviert. Ein Algorithmus wird vorgestellt, der die Risslänge im Modell solange variiert, bis er die modalen Zusammenhänge einer Vorgabe oder einer Messung rekonstruiert. Die eingesetzte Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method ermöglicht dabei eine sehr kurze Rechenzeit in jeden Optimierungsschritt. Zusätzlich ermöglicht die Methode eine Auswertung der modalen Zusammenhänge ohne Postprocessing, was die Rechenzeiten weiter verkürzt.
Damit eine Simulationsrechnung, beispielsweise mit einer FEM-Software, eine ausreichend hohe Genauigkeit erreicht, muss vorausgesetzt werden, dass die Modellparameter eine sehr hohe Güte aufweisen. Die genaue Kenntnis der Materialparameter ist dabei von besonderer Bedeutung. Um diese Parameter bestimmen zu können, müssen die verwendeten Werkstoffe messtechnisch charakterisiert werden. Neben anderen Ansätzen sind dafür akustische Verfahren im Ultraschallbereich geeignet. Für dünnwandige und plattenförmige Materialien können aus den sich ausbreitenden geführten Wellen messtechnisch Dispersionskurven bestimmt und aus diesen die Materialparameter abgeleitet werden.
Da für die Signalverarbeitung und für Optimierungsaufgaben aktuell zunehmend Machine Learning Tools zum Einsatz kommen, stellt sich die Frage, ob diese Werkzeuge auch für die Ermittlung der Materialparameter aus den gemessenen Dispersionskurven eingesetzt werden können.
In der vorgestellten Untersuchung soll ein Convolutional Neural Network aufgestellt werden, welches aus Dispersionsbildern Muster extrahiert und aus diesen eine Schätzung für die Materialparameter ermittelt. Um die Machbarkeit dieses Ansatzes zu prüfen, werden zunächst nur isotrope Materialien betrachtet. Für das Netz werden mit der Scaled-Boundary-Finite-Element-Methode synthetische Daten für das Trainieren und Validieren generiert. Zusätzlich werden die Hyperparameter des neuronalen Netzes variiert, um ein optimales Model für die Schätzung zu finden. Anschließend kann das Netz mit experimentellen Daten getestet und das Ergebnis hinsichtlich der Genauigkeit bewertet werden.
Air-coupled ultrasound sensors have advantages over contact ultrasound sensors when a sample should not become contaminated or influenced by the couplant or the measurement has to be a fast and automated inline process. Thereby, air-coupled transducers must emit high-energy pulses due to the low air-to-solid power transmission ratios (10−3 to 10−8). Currently used resonant transducers trade bandwidth—a prerequisite for material parameter analysis—against pulse energy. Here we show that a combination of a non-resonant ultrasound emitter and a non-resonant detector enables the generation and detection of pulses that are both high in amplitude (130 dB) and bandwidth (2 µs pulse width). We further show an initial application: the detection of reflections inside of a carbon fiber reinforced plastic plate with thicknesses between 1.7 mm and 10 mm. As the sensors work contact-free, the time of flight and the period of the in-plate reflections are independent parameters. Hence, a variation of ultrasound velocity is distinguishable from a variation of plate thickness and both properties are determined simultaneously. The sensor combination is likely to find numerous industrial applications necessitating high automation capacity and opens possibilities for air-coupled, single-side ultrasonic inspection.
Lamb waves are widely used for monitoring the health of structures made of laminated materials (metals, composites). Piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers transmit and receive acoustic guided waves that interact with the elastic properties and the defects of the material under test. In recent years, DINFO developed piezopolymer Interdigital Transducers (IDTs) proven to be suitable to build SHM systems for aerospace applications. Their base material is a Cr/Au-coated PVDF-TrFE copolymer sheet, having a thickness of 100μm and a
metallization of 0.1μm on both sides.
IDTs are attractive for SHM systems for their capability to select specific Lamb wave modes when designed with appropriate electrode pattern. For a reliable application, it is crucial to characterize the in-plane and out-of-plane displacement of the transducer and to correlate the ultrasonic propagating signal with the Lamb waves dispersion curves in laminates. For example, for a 2 mm aluminum plate A0 mode has dominant out-of-plane displacement, whereas S0 mode has dominant in-plane displacement at the plate's surface.
In collaboration with BAM the characterization of free vibrational modes using a 3D laser doppler vibrometer was performed. The analysis in the frequency domain was performed using the following parameters: a chirp excitation with frequencies 50-500 kHz and 0.5-1 MHz with 195 Hz and 390 Hz frequency resolution respectively at 100 Vpp for a total of 90 averaged measurements per point. Also propagating modes were characterized by bonding the IDT on a 2 mm aluminum plate and analyzing the in-plane and the out-of-plane components. A0-mode was successfully excited having the main lobe aligned with the main axis of the IDT, confirming the dominant presence of this propagating mode.
The results could be used as a basis for design and optimization of the IDTs in terms of directivity and mode selection, and to facilitate interpretation of the ultrasonic guided waves propagating in laminated structures.
Structural health monitoring (SHM) is a term that groups together techniques adopted to evaluate in a continued fashion the structural integrity and degradation of technical appliances. SHM is particularly attractive for components that are difficult to access or expensive to take off-line. Among many other techniques, SHM can be performed using ultrasonic guided waves (UGW) which have an advantage of traveling over Long distances. Various guided wave modes exist along with many methods for their generation and sensing, e.g by means of interdigital transducers (IDT). This contribution is dedicated to the design and characterization of a flexible piezopolymerbased IDT which allows for the selective excitation of UGW, resulting in more straightforward data analysis. The designed IDT was characterized using a 3D Laser Doppler Vibrometer (3D LDV) in the air to identify and analyze the IDT’s Vibration modes. Then the transducer was mounted on an aluminum plate, and the generated wavefield was measured with the 3D LDV.
According to this investigation, we demonstrate that it is possible to selectively excite desired guided wave mode, namely the A0 mode, suppressing the excitation of the S0 mode. Moreover, the measured wavefield allows for analysis of the directivity of the designed IDT. All in all the results show good correlation between theoretical predictions and measured values, thus allowing to use the current design in terms of selective excitation as it is.
Structural health monitoring (SHM) is a term that groups together techniques adopted to evaluate in a continued fashion the structural integrity and degradation of technical appliances. SHM is particularly attractive for components that are difficult to access or expensive to take off-line. Among many other techniques, SHM can be performed using ultrasonic guided waves (UGW) which have an advantage of traveling over Long distances. Various guided wave modes exist along with many methods for their generation and sensing, e.g by means of interdigital transducers (IDT). This contribution is dedicated to the design and characterization of a flexible piezopolymerbased IDT which allows for the selective excitation of UGW, resulting in more straightforward data analysis. The designed IDT was characterized using a 3D Laser Doppler Vibrometer (3D LDV) in the air to identify and analyze the IDT’s Vibration modes. Then the transducer was mounted on an aluminum plate, and the generated wavefield was measured with the 3D LDV.
According to this investigation, we demonstrate that it is possible to selectively excite desired guided wave mode, namely the A0 mode, suppressing the excitation of the S0 mode. Moreover, the measured wavefield allows for analysis of the directivity of the designed IDT. All in all the results show good correlation between theoretical predictions and measured values, thus allowing to use the current design in terms of selective excitation as it is.
Klebeverbindungen sind aus vielen Anwendungen wie dem Leichtbau nicht mehr wegzudenken. Durch die Verklebung gleicher oder ungleicher Materialien entstehen viele Vorteile gegenüber konservativen Fügeverfahren. Jedoch stellen schwache Haftfestigkeiten eine sehr unbeliebte Fehlerart dar, die schlecht zu detektieren sind und zu einem frühzeitigen Versagen der Verklebung bei vergleichsweise geringen Belastungen führen können. Aufgrund hoher Sicherheits- und Qualitätsansprüche wird die Haftfestigkeit dieser Verbindungen jedoch noch immer zerstörend geprüft. Zufriedenstellende zerstörungsfreie Verfahren, um Haftfestigkeiten zu prüfen, sind nicht vorhanden und Thema gegenwärtiger Forschung. Ein Ansatz, der in diesem Projekt verfolgt wird, liegt in der Verwendung geführter Ultraschallwellen.
Hierzu wird anhand von Simulationen mittels der Scaled Boundary Finite Element Methode gezeigt, dass die gezielte Auswertung bestimmter Bereiche des Dispersionsdiagrams, den sogenannten vermiedenen Kreuzungen (engl. mode repulsion regions), eine Charakterisierung der Haftfestigkeiten zulassen könnten. Dies liegt darin begründet, dass die mittleren mechanischen Belastungen der Kleberschicht in diesen Bereichen ein lokales Maximum aufweisen und daher eine erhöhte Sensitivität auf Materialänderungen haben. Es wird gezeigt, wie sensitiv diese Bereiche auf Materialänderungen in der Klebergrenzschicht sind und welche potenziellen Fehlergrößen existieren.
Durch die Internationalisierung in der Standardisierung wurden die Regelwerke zur „Charakterisierung und Verifizierung der Ultraschall-Prüfausrüstung“, die bisher als europäische Regelwerke der DIN EN 12668 Reihe eingeordnet waren, überarbeitet und in internationale Regelwerke überführt. Die Regelwerke sind seit September 2021 als deutsche Übersetzung eingeführt als DIN EN ISO 22232 und ersetzen somit in Deutschland die bisher geltenden Regelwerke der DIN EN 12668 Reihe. Die drei Teile der Reihe beschäftigen sich in Teil 1 mit den Prüfgeräten, in Teil 2 mit den Prüfköpfen und in Teil 3 mit der Prüfausrüstung, die aus Prüfgerät, Prüfkopf und Kabel besteht. In dem Vortrag möchten wir neben dem historischen Werdegang darlegen, welche Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede die Regelwerke aufweisen und worauf bei der Umstellung zu achten ist.
Klebeverbindungen sind aus vielen Anwendungen wie dem Leichtbau nicht mehr wegzudenken. Durch die Verklebung gleicher oder ungleicher Materialien entstehen viele Vorteile gegenüber konservativen Fügeverfahren. Jedoch stellen schwache Haftfestigkeiten eine sehr unbeliebte Fehlerart dar, die schlecht zu detektieren sind und zu einem frühzeitigen Versagen der Verklebung bei vergleichsweise geringen Belastungen führen können. Aufgrund hoher Sicherheits- und Qualitätsansprüche wird die Haftfestigkeit dieser Verbindungen jedoch noch immer zerstörend geprüft. Zufriedenstellende zerstörungsfreie Verfahren, um Haftfestigkeiten zu prüfen, sind nicht vorhanden und Thema gegenwärtiger Forschung. Ein Ansatz, der in diesem Projekt verfolgt wird, liegt in der Verwendung geführter Ultraschallwellen.
Hierzu wird anhand von Simulationen mittels der Scaled Boundary Finite Element Methode gezeigt, dass die gezielte Auswertung bestimmter Bereiche des Dispersionsdiagrams, den sogenannten vermiedenen Kreuzungen (engl. mode repulsion regions), eine Charakterisierung der Haftfestigkeiten zulassen könnten. Dies liegt darin begründet, dass die mittleren mechanischen Belastungen der Kleberschicht in diesen Bereichen ein lokales Maximum aufweisen und daher eine erhöhte Sensitivität auf Materialänderungen haben. Es wird gezeigt, wie sensitiv diese Bereiche auf Materialänderungen in der Klebergrenzschicht sind und welche potenziellen Fehlergrößen existieren.
Klebeverbindungen sind aus dem heutigen Leichtbau wie der Automobil- und Luftfahrtindustrie nicht mehr wegzudenken. Durch die Verklebung gleicher oder ungleicher Materialien entstehen viele Vorteile gegenüber konservativen Fügeverfahren wie dem Schweißen oder dem Nieten. Aufgrund hoher Sicherheits- und Qualitätsansprüche wird die Festigkeit dieser Verbindungen jedoch noch immer zerstörend geprüft. Zuverlässige und zufriedenstellende zerstörungsfreie Verfahren, insbesondere um schwache Haftfestigkeiten zu prüfen, sind nicht vorhanden und Thema gegenwärtiger Forschung. Ein Ansatz, der in diesem Projekt verfolgt wird, liegt in der Verwendung geführter Ultraschallwellen und der gezielten Auswertung spezifischer Bereiche des Dispersionsdiagrams, den sogenannten Mode Repulsion Regions, welche eine potenzielle Charakterisierung der Haftfestigkeiten zulassen könnten.
Hierzu wurden neben Simulationen mittels der sogenannten SBFEM, zur Findung geeigneter Charakterisierungsparameter, auch experimentelle zerstörungsfreie Untersuchungen von verklebten Zweischichtstrukturen aus Aluminium und Polycarbonat mittels geführter Ultraschallwellen durchgeführt . Hierzu dienten Voruntersuchungen an Stirnabzugsproben mittels zerstörender Validierungsmessungen zur Ermittlung geeigneter Oberflächenbearbeitungen zur Herstellung verschiedener Haftfestigkeiten. Mit Niederdruckplasma behandelte Proben dienten bei den zerstörungsfreien Messungen als ideale Referenzklebung gegenüber den schwächeren Haftfestigkeiten.
Es konnten verschiedenste Haftfestigkeiten reproduzierbar hergestellt, zerstörend validiert und zerstörungsfrei mittels geführter Ultraschallwellen untersucht werden. Die Ausprägungen bestimmter Mode Repulsion Regions zeigen eine vielversprechende Sensitivität, welche durch ein geeigneten Parameter charakterisiert werden konnten.
Mit dem steigenden Einsatz der luftgekoppelten Ultraschallprüfung steigt auch der Bedarf an verlässlichen Methoden der Charakterisierung der eingesetzten Technik. Mehrere unterschiedliche Verfahren zur Charakterisierung von luftgekoppelten Wandlern und der entsprechenden Gerätetechnik werden verwendet. Prüfkopf-Datenblätter verschiedener Hersteller beinhalten unterschiedliche Prüfkopfparameter, wobei oft eigene Verfahren für die Charakterisierung dieser Prüfköpfe verwendet werden. Diese Vielfalt der Parameter und Verfahren erschwert den potenziellen Kunden den Vergleich zwischen den Prüfköpfen unterschiedlicher Hersteller. Daraus ergibt sich der Bedarf, die Verfahren zur Charakterisierung von luftgekoppelten Ultraschallwandlern zu standardisieren.
Vorrangig diese Überlegungen bewegten Hersteller von luftgekoppelten Ultraschallwandlern, Forschungseinrichtungen und Anwender sich zu vernetzen und im Rahmen des Fachausschusses „Ultraschall“ den Unterausschuss „Luftgekoppelte Ultraschallprüfung“ zu gründen. Als erstes Ziel hat sich der Unterausschuss die Erarbeitung einer Richtlinie zur Charakterisierung von luftgekoppelten Ultraschallwandlern gesetzt.
Dieser Beitrag ist ein Überblick über viele Methoden zur Charakterisierung von luftgekoppelten Ultraschallwandlern, mit dem Schwerpunkt auf der akustischen Charakterisierung. Zu den wichtigsten Wandlerparametern gehören Empfindlichkeit, Mittenfrequenz, Bandbreite, Fokusgröße und Fokusabstand. Verschiedene Methoden der Schallfeldvermessung werden untereinander verglichen. Diese Überlegungen bieten den Ausgangspunkt für spätere Arbeit an einer Richtlinie zur Charakterisierung von luftgekoppelten Ultraschallwandlern.
Nicht nur die Qualitätssicherung von Bauteilen wird immer wichtiger und muss immer höheren Anforderungen entsprechen, sondern auch die dafür verwendete Prüfeinrichtung und die Sensorik. Für die Qualitätssicherung von Ultraschall-Prüfköpfen mit Luftankopplung bestand die bisherige Lösung darin, baugleiche Wandler als Aktuatoren (Referenzsender) einzusetzen.
Für eine Weiterentwicklung der Wandler ist eine akustische Quelle wünschenswert, die eine weit größere Bandbreite mit flachem Frequenzgang aufweist, als die zu untersuchenden Prüfköpfe. Hier bieten sich thermoakustische Wandler an, die keine ausgeprägten Resonanzen haben und über eine hohe Bandbreite verfügen (min. 10 kHz bis 1 MHz). Diese wurden von der BAM in Berlin entwickelt und decken den Frequenzbereich von typischen Luftultraschall-Prüfköpfen vollständig ab.
Der Vortag beschreibt die Besonderheiten der Ansteuerung dieser Wandler, die einen Innenwiderstand von ca. 7 Ohm besitzen und eine Pulsleistung von etwa 10 kW benötigen.
Ferner werden erste Ergebnisse der Charakterisierung von unterschiedlichen piezokeramischen Prüfköpfen im Frequenzbereich von 50 kHz bis 500 kHz präsentiert.
Beispielhaft zeigte ein Prüfkopf mit mehreren Anpassschichten lokale Frequenzunterschiede im Schallfeld.
In plate-like structures, ultrasonic waves propagate as Lamb waves. Their use is important for many applications from non-destructive testing to structural health monitoring. Efficient simulation tools contribute to a significant value add e.g. in designing systems for these applications. Under which conditions an acceptable accuracy of these models with affordable computational costs can be achieved is an open question. Many of these applications include the usage of a plane wavefront, simulated in 2D crossesctional models to reduce complexity. In this contribution, a comparative case study between simulations and experiments is presented. The aim is to verify and compare a 2D cross-sectional model with experimental data. The experimental setup for this case study consists of an aluminum plate. A rectangular piezoelectric transducer is mounted for guided wave excitation. A laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) measures out-of-plane velocities on the plate. A 2D cross-sectional model based on the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) is used to simulate the wave propagation of the experimental setup. The first data points near the transducer are used to fit the excitation tractions of the model, while additional points further away from the source are used to validate the model. The comparison between the recorded measurements and the simulated velocities shows a high degree of compatibility.
In this contribution, we present three models to capture singularities in combination with the Spectral Element Method. The first model, the continued-fraction-based Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method, the second model, a new approach based on enrichment with static modes, and the third model, which uses an hp-refinement near the singularity, are compared among each other and evaluated in terms of their respective efficiency and accuracy.
The Spectral Element Method (SEM) has been proven to be an efficient numerical method for solving the wave equation in linear elastic bodies. This efficiency is reduced if a stress singularity is present in the body. For example, re-entrant corners, material interfaces, fixed boundaries, and especially crack tips can cause stress singularities. To preserve the efficiency of the SEM, special solution strategies are required. There are many approaches which consider stress singularities, but comparisons are rare for dynamic problems. Finding an efficient model is an important step for many applications. In particular, applications for structural health monitoring and non-destructive evaluation rely on accurate and efficient crack models.
In this contribution, we present several models to capture singularities in combination with the SEM. The theory behind the models are shortly summarized and we show results for different benchmark problems in two dimensions. The first model deploys a new class of singular elements. For these singular elements, the crack tip approximation is computed based on the static Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM). The second model uses the continued‐fraction‐based SBFEM, while the third model uses an hp-refinement near the singularity. The models are compared among each other and evaluated in terms of their respective efficiency and accuracy.
In the last twenty years, components made of fibre-reinforced plastic became a prominently used material in safety-relevant structures. Periodic in-service inspection of these structures using reliable non-destructive testing methods became a relevant issue in the field. The goal of the EMRP-funded project VITCEA (Validated Inspection Techniques for Composites in Energy Applications) aims on the evaluation of the performance of various non-destructive testing methods on the inspection of fibre-reinforced plastics.
In this talk the results of the comparison of different ultrasonic testing methods will be discussed. There are two challenges for the ultrasonic inspection of fibre-reinforced plastics. Firstly, different material properties of the fibre and the resin cause anisotropic acoustical behaviour of the material. Secondly, the physical layout of fibre layers leads to complex structures of fibre-reinforced plastic parts, and thus to a complex acoustical response. Both result in a reduction of the signal to noise ratio and make interpretation of measurement results rather extensive.
During the VITCEA project, the acoustical behaviour of fibre-reinforced plate materials has been simulated. Specimens with artificial flaws for the evaluation of the detection thresholds have been designed and manufactured.
Various mechanized ultrasonic testing methods including phased-array sensors, air-coupled transducers, immersion tank testing and contact technique have been evaluated on the specially designed specimen. Laboratory scale tests and a round robin test have been carried out. The probability of detection and the detection thresholds for each method have been estimated.
Der Vortrag gibt einen Überblick über aktuelle Möglichkeiten zur Integration von sensorischen Funktionen in Leichtbauwerkstoffe, mit Fokus auf Faserverbundkunststoffe (FVK). Neben den unterschiedlichen Arten der eingesetzten Sensoren werden auch deren Arbeitsweisen, Anwendungsbereiche und Anwendungsbreiten erläutert. Es erfolgt eine Diskussion der Auswirkungen der Integration von Sensoren in die Bauteilstruktur und daraus abgeleitet eine Betrachtung der Vor- und Nachteile der einzelnen Methoden.
Das lernen die Teilnehmer im Vortrag:
Integration von Sensoren in Faserverbundstrukturen
Anwendungen von Sensorik
Auswirkungen der Funktionsintegration auf die Composite
Recently, various guided wave tomography algorithms have been developed to map structural changes from remote locations. The focus has been on structures made of isotropic materials and little work has been done on structures made of anisotropic materials. Primary complication to implement tomography in composite laminates is associated with the complex forward model to accurately simulate the 3-D guided wave propagation. In this study, we demonstrate that guided wave propagation can be approximated by an equivalent 2-D acoustic model. It is based on finite-difference discretization method in which the wave-field is parameterized by phase velocity and dimensionless anisotropic parameters. The reconstruction of defects is based on a full-waveform inversion algorithm and was implemented on the data obtained from finite element simulations. Results on a localized stiffness defects in composite plates with various layups demonstrate the attractiveness of the proposed methodology.
Composite pressure vessels consist of an internal liner (Steel, aluminum, or plastic) which stores the liquid or gas and CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastics) which serves as pressure resistance. These vessels comprise some advantages compared with conventional vessels made of steel or aluminum and their application grew strongly over the last decade. The reason for this trend is the tremendous weight saving.
However, the long-time behavior for filling and discharging cycles and the creep strength of composite vessels is not fully understood. Therefore, BAM started an internal project to investigate degradation of these material systems. Normally, high-frequency eddy current testing (HF-ET, f > 10 MHz) is deployed for CFRP due to the low conductivity of the fibers, which is in the order of 0.01 MS/s, and the capacitive coupling between them. Nevertheless, in some cases conventional ET can be applied.
Some first results using conventional ET for detecting leakages in the internal liners are already presented. This contribution gives an update of our investigation using both conventional and high-frequency ET. Therefore, we developed an ET equipment based on a vector network analyzer using frequencies between 300 kHz and 2 GHz. The focus concerns the study of the aging effects.
This thesis investigates ultrasonic guided waves (GW) in multi-layered plates with the focus on higher order modes. The aim is to develop techniques for hybrid structures such as of adhesive bonds and composite pressure vessels (COPV) which are widely used in automotive and aerospace industries and are still challenging to inspect non-destructively. To be able to analyse GW, numerical methods and precise material properties are required. For this purpose, an efficient semi-analytical approach, the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method, is used. The material properties are inferred by a GW-based optimisation procedure and a sensitivity study is performed to demonstrate the influence of properties on GW. Then, an interesting feature, called mode repulsion, is investigated with respect to weak and strong adhesive bonds. The results show that the coupling between two layers influences the distance between coupled modes in a mode repulsion region, thus allowing for the characterisation of adhesive bonds. At next, wave-damage interaction is studied in the hybrid structure as of the COPV. Results show that the wave energy can be concentrated in a certain layer enabling damage localisation within different layers. Further investigations are carried out on the hybrid plate with an impact-induced damage. Two well-known wavenumber mapping techniques, which allow to quantify the damage in three dimensions, are implemented and their comparison is done for the first time.
Damage Quantification in Aluminium-CFRP Composite Structures using Guided Wave Wavenumber Mapping
(2019)
The use of composite materials is associated not only with the advantages of weight reduction and improved structural performance but also with the risk of barely visible impacts or manufacturing damages. One of the promising techniques for the detection and characterisation of such damages is based on ultrasonic guided wave propagation and analysis. However, the multimodal nature and dispersive behaviour of these waves make their analysis difficult. Various signal processing techniques have been proposed for easier interpretation of guided wave signals and extraction of the necessary information about the damage. One of them is the wavenumber mapping which consists of creating a cartography of the wavenumber of a propagating mode over an inspected area, using a dense wavefield acquisition measured for example with a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer. This technique allows both the quantification of the in-plane size and the depth of damage, for example, impact-induced delamination in composite laminates.
In this contribution, wavenumber mapping is applied to a delaminated aluminium-CFRP composite structure which corresponds to composite-overwrapped pressure vessels used for storing gases in aerospace and automotive industries. The analysis of experimental data obtained from measurements of guided waves propagating in an aluminium-CFRP composite plate with impact-induced damage is performed. The output of the imaging is a three-dimensional representation of the delamination induced by the impact. Good agreement between conventional ultrasonic testing and guided wave damage mapping can be found.
Damage Quantification in Aluminium-CFRP Composite Structures using Guided Wave Wavenumber Mapping
(2019)
The use of composite materials is associated not only with the advantages of weight reduction and improved structural performance but also with the risk of barely visible impacts or manufacturing damages. One of the promising techniques for the detection and characterisation of such damages is based on ultrasonic guided wave propagation and analysis. However, the multimodal nature and dispersive behaviour of these waves make their analysis difficult. Various signal processing techniques have been proposed for easier interpretation of guided wave signals and extraction of the necessary information about the damage. One of them is the wavenumber mapping which consists of creating a cartography of the wavenumber of a propagating mode over an inspected area, using a dense wavefield acquisition measured for example with a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer. This technique allows both the quantification of the in-plane size and the depth of damage, for example, impact-induced delamination in composite laminates.
In this contribution, wavenumber mapping is applied to a delaminated aluminium-CFRP composite structure which corresponds to composite-overwrapped pressure vessels used for storing gases in aerospace and automotive industries. The analysis of experimental data obtained from measurements of guided waves propagating in an aluminium-CFRP composite plate with impact-induced damage is performed. The output of the imaging is a three-dimensional representation of the delamination induced by the impact. Good agreement between conventional ultrasonic testing and guided wave damage mapping can be found.
Composite-overwrapped pressure vessels (COPV) are increasingly used in the transportation industry due to their high strength to mass ratio. Throughout the years, various designs were developed and found their applications. Currently, there are five designs, which can be subdivided into two main categories - with a load-sharing metal liner and with a non-load-sharing plastic liner. The main damage mechanism defining the lifetime of the first type is fatigue of the metal liner, whereas for the second type it is fatigue of the composite overwrap. Nevertheless, one damage type which may drastically reduce the lifetime of COPV is impact-induced damage. Therefore, this barely visible damage needs to be assessed in a non-destructive way to decide whether the pressure vessel can be further used or has to be put out of service. One of the possible methods is based on ultrasonic waves. In this contribution, both conventional ultrasonic testing (UT) by high-frequency bulk waves and wavenumber mapping by low frequency guided waves are used to evaluate impact damage. Wavenumber mapping techniques are first benchmarked on a simulated aluminium panel then applied to experimental measurements acquired on a delaminated aluminium-CFRP composite plate which corresponds to a structure of COPV with a load-sharing metal liner. The analysis of experimental data obtained from measurements of guided waves propagating in an aluminium-CFRP composite plate with impact-induced damage is performed. All approaches show similar performance in terms of quantification of damage size and depths while being applied to numerical data. The approaches used on the experimental data deliver an accurate estimate of the in-plane size of the large delamination at the aluminium-CFRP interface but only a rough estimate of its depth. Moreover, none of the wavenumber mapping techniques used in the study can quantify every delamination between CFRP plies caused by the impact, which is the case for conventional UT. This may be solved by using higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) or more advanced signal processing techniques. All in all, it can be concluded that imaging of complex impact damage in fibre-reinforced composites based on wavenumber mapping is not straightforward and stays a challenging task.
The fourth dataset dedicated to the Open Guided Waves platform presented in this work aims at a carbon fiber composite plate with an additional omega stringer at constant temperature conditions. The dataset provides full ultrasonic guided wavefields.
A chirp signal in the frequency range 20-500 kHz and Hann windowed tone-burst signal with 5 cycles and carrier frequencies of 16.5 kHz, 50 kHz, 100 kHz, 200 kHz and 300kHz are used to excite the wave. The piezoceramic actuator used for this purpose is attached to the center of the stringer side surface of the core plate.
Three scenarios are provided with this setup: (1) wavefield measurements without damage, (2) wavefield measurements with a local stringer debond and (3) wavefield measurements with a large stringer debond. The defects were caused by impacts performed from the backside of the plate. As result, the stringer feet debonds locally which was verified with conventional ultrasound measurements.
The dataset can be used for benchmarking purposes of various signal processing methods for damage imaging.
The detailed description of the dataset is published in Data in Brief Journal.
The fourth dataset dedicated to the Open Guided Waves platform presented in this work aims at a carbon fiber composite plate with an additional omega stringer at constant temperature conditions. The dataset provides full ultrasonic guided wavefields. Two types of signals were used for guided wave excitation, namely chirp signal and tone-burst signal. The chirp signal had a frequency range of 20-500kHz. The tone-burst signals had a form of sine modulated by Hann window with 5 cycles and carrier frequencies 16.5kHz, 50kHz, 100kHz, 200kHz, 300kHz. The piezoceramic actuator used for this purpose was attached to the center of the stringer side surface of the core plate. Three scenarios are provided with this setup: (1) wavefield measurements without damage, (2) wavefield measurements with a local stringer debond and (3) wavefield measurements with a large stringer debond. The defects were caused by impacts performed from the backside of the plate. As result, the stringer feet debonds locally which was verified with conventional ultrasound measurements.
In recent years carbon über polymers have become a popular light-weight substitute for high-weight materials such as steel. One advantage of carbon fiber polymers is the high strength-to-weight ratio, thus some popular application areas are weight sensitive such as aeronautics or automobiles. As these application areas are especially sensitive to material failure it is of significant interest to characterize material defects which may arise. In this talk we will propose a method to characterize material defects in carbon fiber reinforced polymers using gradient-based optimization methods. The procedure is based on the solution of an inverse problem where simulation data and experimental data is fitted. Here,
gradients of the simulation will be supplied by an Algorithmic Differentiation (AD) tool which greatly enhances the quality of the solution. Numerical examples will be provided.
In non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring with ultrasonic waves, the quantification of damage in components is one of the main tasks. In many shell-like structures, such as plates, pipes, or laminate components, ultrasonic waves propagate as guided waves. Although guided waves enable the testing of large areas, their multimodal and dispersive properties make it challenging to analyze signals. So, there is a need for more advanced algorithms to handle these properties, especially when reconstructing damage position and geometry.
The reconstruction can be formulated as an inverse problem where the measured signals are fitted with a simulative forward model. Due to the small wavelength of ultrasonic waves, classic forward models based on, e.g., the Finite Element Method are computationally intensive. In contrast, the authors use the semi-analytical Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) to reduce the computational effort. The SBFEM approximates arbitrary long, undamaged parts of the structure with only a few degrees of freedom.
This contribution summarizes a general inverse procedure based on algorithmic differentiation in combination with the SBFEM. Results are presented for damaged 2D cross-sectional models of waveguides. These results include an analysis of the robustness of the proposed algorithms against noise.
This paper considers an indirect measurement approach to reconstruct a defect in a two-dimensional waveguide model for a non-destructive ultrasonic inspection via derivative-based optimization. The propagation of the mechanical waves is simulated by the scaled boundary finite element method that builds on a semi-analytical approach. The simulated data are then fitted to given data associated with the reflected waves from a defect which is to be reconstructed. For this purpose, we apply an iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method in combination with algorithmic differentiation to provide the required derivative information accurately and efficiently. We present numerical results for three kinds of defects, namely, a crack, delamination, and corrosion. The objective function and the properties of the reconstruction method are investigated. The examples show that the parameterization of the defect can be reconstructed efficiently as well as robustly in the presence of noise.
Bei der simulationsunterstützten Planung kritischer Ultraschallprüfaufgaben ist die detaillierte Kenntnis der Parameter der eingesetzten Prüfköpfe von entscheidender Bedeutung. Durch die, in den Regelwerken (DIN EN ISO 22232-2) zugelassenen Toleranzen bei der Herstellung der Prüfköpfe sind einige Prüfkopfparameter nur ungefähr bekannt. Durch die Alterung von Prüfköpfen und Verschleiß können auch Parameter variieren, die nicht vollständig durch die erforderliche Justierung ausgeglichen werden können. Daher sind zusätzlichen Vorversuche oft unvermeidlich. In dieser Arbeit wurden nach einer statistischen Versuchsplanung (DoE) Untersuchungen zur relativen Echo-Empfindlichkeit von konventionellen Prüfköpfen durchgeführt. Die Auswertung wurde für prüfkopfbezogene und personenbezogene Stichproben durchgeführt. Es wird gezeigt, wie weit die Daten um den Zentralwert herum verteilt sind bzw. wie sehr sich das Testobjekt im untersuchten Merkmal unterscheidet. Gerade in Hinblick auf die Beurteilung der intrinsischen Fähigkeit von Prüfverfahren und der Human Factors wird das POD-Analysekonzept zur quantitativen Bewertung der Zuverlässigkeit weiterentwickelt. Die HF-Quantifizierung bezieht sich auf verschiedene Faktoren und Methoden, die in der Veröffentlichung von M. Bertovic et al. [1] ausführlich beschrieben wurden. Die Schritte, die für das Bewertungsverfahren zur POD-Analyse erforderlich sind, werden in der Veröffentlichung von D. Kanzler et al. [2] detailliert dargestellt. Die grundlegenden Anforderungen an die Testkörpersätze für die POD-Analyse wurden in der Publikation von A. Jüngert et al. [3] zusammengefasst. Diesbezüglich wurden mit Hilfe von Simulationsrechnungen die möglichen Abweichungen an Beispielen der im Projekt norm- POD ausgewählten Prüfanordnungen dargestellt. Die Ergebnisse wurden Messungen an Testkörpern gegenübergestellt.
In this study, the concept of a Zero Mass Flow Liner is evaluated. The concept enables impedance control by the induction of periodic bias flow through the perforated facing sheet of the liner. The periodic bias flow is generated by a secondary high amplitude acoustic actuation. By means of the periodic bias flow, the liner can be tuned to different operating points in a given range of grazing flow velocities. The equivalent fluid impedance model for perforated plates is modified to account for the effects of periodic bias flow and grazing flow. An optimization routine, based on a genetic algorithm, is implemented. The method is applicable to any liner concept and uses the impedance of the lined surface as boundary condition in a numerical simulation. Thereby, a set of liner parameters is derived in order to obtain the desired damping characteristics. Based on the results of the optimization, a Zero Mass Flow Liner is manufactured and consequently evaluated experimentally. The damping characteristics are evaluated in form of the dissipated energy along the lined surface. Prediction and measurements show agreement. The Zero Mass
Flow Liner delivers broad band dissipation of high peak value over a range of grazing flow Mach numbers. Under grazing ow conditions, the effect of periodic bias flow is reduced. This poses high energy requirements in high Mach number flow regimes which might restrict the applicability of the Zero Mass Flow concept to grazing flows of low Mach numbers.
In this study, the concept of a zero mass flow liner is evaluated. The concept enables impedance control by theinduction of, acoustically actuated, periodic bias flowthrough the facing sheet of the liner. Bymeans of the periodic bias flow, the impedance of the liner is adapted to different grazing flowconditions.The equivalent fluid impedancemodel for perforated plates is modified to account for the effects of periodic bias and grazing flow. A generally applicable optimization routine, using the impedance of the lined surface as a boundary condition in a numeric calculation, is implemented. Based on the results of the optimization, a zero mass flow liner is manufactured and evaluated experimentally. The damping characteristics are assessed in the form of dissipated energy along the lined surface.
Prediction and measurements show reasonable agreement. The zero mass flow liner delivers broadband dissipation of high peak value over a range of grazing flow Mach numbers. Under grazing flow, the effect of periodic bias flow is reduced. For a ratio of grazing to bias flow velocities larger than five, no appreciable effect is found. This poses considerable energy requirements on the actuation source for the application in high-Mach-number flow regimes.
In non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring, ultrasonic guided waves (UGWs) are of great interest for finding and characterizing structural flaws. The interaction of the waves with the flaws can often not be described analytically due to waves’ complexity. This makes numerical simulations and experiments indispensable. However, mentioned field of research is still relatively young and most of the methods focus on flaw localization, using time of flight of the reflected signal. This leaves many possibilities for further research, especially when it comes to separate analysis of different propagating modes.
It is well-known that ultrasonic wave modes convert when interacting with flaws. When a fundamental mode (A0 or S0) encounters a notch, it interacts and converts to another fundamental mode. In this contribution, this effect is used to analyze the depth of a notch. Firstly, numerical simulations are presented, which show notch depth proportionality to amplitude ratio of fundamental modes. To validate these results, experiments were carried out on a metal plate with a shallow notch which was gradually deepened. UGWs were excited using a polymer-based interdigital transducer (IDT) and detected with a 3D laser Doppler vibrometer. The IDT is employed to ensure excitation of a single mode and thus to reduce the complexity of the analysis. Good agreement between numerical and experimental results has been found. The results show the potential of UGWs not only for defect reconstruction and localization, but also its precise sizing.
Detaillierte Kenntnisse der elastischen Materialeigenschaften sind in vielen ingenieurtechnischen Bereichen von grundlegender Bedeutung. Insbesondere für die Anwendung von Predictive Maintenance und Structural- Health-Monitoring Methoden mit Ultraschall ist die genaue Kenntnis der elastischen Materialkonstanten eine Grundvoraussetzung. Die von den Herstellern zur Verfügung gestellten Angaben zu den elastischen Materialkonstanten, insbesondere für Polymere und faserverstärkte Kunststoffe, sind jedoch oft unzureichend, da diese vom Produktionsprozess abhängig sind und sich zusätzlich aufgrund von Materialabbauprozessen oder Ermüdung ändern können. In der Praxis liegen polymere Werkstoffe, faserverstärkte Kunststoffe und Metalle oft als dünne, plattenförmige Strukturen vor, in welchen sich geführte Ultraschallwellen (UGWs) ausbreiten können. In der aktuellen Forschung sind bereits verschiedene Neuronale Modelle zur Bestimmung der elastischen Konstanten und der Materialcharakterisierung mittels UGWs bekannt. Ein einfaches neuronales Netz, mit aus Dispersionsbildern extrahierten Werten für Frequenz und Wellenzahl ausbeutungsfähiger Moden als Eingabe, zur Vorhersage der elastischen Konstanten wird in verwendet. Ein rekurrentes Neuronales Netz mit einem Zeit-Frequenz Vektor als Eingabe wird in angewandt, während in ein 1D- Convolutional-Neuronal-Networks (CNN) unter Verwendung der zeitlichen Auslenkung der Grundmoden und in ein 2D-CNN unter Verwendung einer polaren Gruppengeschwindigkeitsdarstellung zur Bestimmung der elastischen Konstanten verwendet wird. In diesem Vortrag wird ein Ansatz zur Bestimmung der isotropen elastischen Konstanten von dünnen Platten auf der Grundlage von UGWs unter Verwendung von Dispersionsbildern und 2D-CNNs vorgestellt. Dispersionsabbildungen aus numerischen Simulationen werden mithilfe verschiedener Methoden vorverarbeitet, um realistische Messdaten zu simulieren. Mit den modifizierten Daten wird das Modell trainiert und die Architektur optimiert. Anschließend wird die Genauigkeit des erzeugten Modells mit realen Messdaten validiert. Es wird gezeigt, dass 2D-CNNs in der Lage sind, die isotropen elastischen Konstanten anhand multimodaler Merkmale aus Dispersionsbildern vorherzusagen, ohne dass eine anfängliche Schätzung der Parameter oder manuelle Merkmalsextraktion erforderlich ist.
Im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz haben DIN und DKE im Januar 2022 die Arbeiten an der zweiten Ausgabe der Deutschen Normungsroadmap Künstliche Intelligenz gestartet. In einem breiten Beteiligungsprozess und unter Mitwirkung von mehr als 570 Fachleuten aus Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft, öffentlicher Hand und Zivilgesellschaft wurde damit der strategische Fahrplan für die KI-Normung weiterentwickelt. Koordiniert und begleitet wurden diese Arbeiten von einer hochrangigen Koordinierungsgruppe für KI-Normung und -Konformität.
Mit der Normungsroadmap wird eine Maßnahme der KI-Strategie der Bundesregierung umgesetzt und damit ein wesentlicher Beitrag zur „KI – Made in Germany“ geleistet.
Die Normung ist Teil der KI-Strategie und ein strategisches Instrument zur Stärkung der Innovations- und Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der deutschen und europäischen Wirtschaft. Nicht zuletzt deshalb spielt sie im geplanten europäischen Rechtsrahmen für KI, dem Artificial Intelligence Act, eine besondere Rolle.
DICONDE für ET
(2019)
DICONDE in der ZfP
(2023)
DICONDE (Digital Imaging and Communication in Non-Destructive Evaluation) ist ein offener internationaler Standard zur Speicherung und zum Austausch industrieller Prüfdaten und prozessbezogener Informationen. Der DICONDE-Standard definiert sowohl die Semantik für eine strukturierte Speicherung von Daten als auch die netzwerkbasierte Kommunikation zwischen zwei Endpunkten. Damit lassen sich viele Vorgänge von Prüfprozessen digital und sicher abbilden und gleichzeitig normative Anforderungen wie eine Rückführbarkeit zum Prüfer und Prüfobjekt sowie eine Reproduzierbarkeit von Prüfergebnissen erfüllen.
DICONDE (Digital Imaging and Communication in Non-Destructive Testing) is an open international standard for storing and exchanging industrial test data and process-related information. The DICONDE standard defines both the semantics for structured storage of data and the network-based communication between two endpoints. This allows many test processes to be mapped digitally and securely, while at the same time meeting normative requirements such as traceability to the tester and test object and reproducibility of test results.
The use of composite pressure vessels instead of conventional vessels made of steel or aluminum grew strongly over the last decade. The reason for this trend is the tremendous weight saving in case of composite vessels. However, the long-time behavior is not fully understood for filling and discharging cycles and creep strength and their influence on the CFRP coating (carbon fiber reinforced plastics) and the internal liner (steel, aluminum, or plastics). The CFRP ensures the pressure resistance while the inner liner is used as container for liquid or gas. To overcome the missing knowledge of ageing BAM started an internal project to investigate degradation of these material systems. Therefore, applicable testing methods like eddy current testing are needed. Normally, high-frequency eddy current testing (HF-ET, f > 10 MHz) is deployed for CFRP due to its low conductivity of the fiber, which is in the order of 0.01 MS/s, and the capacitive coupling between the fibers. Nevertheless, in some cases conventional ET can be applied. We show a concise summary of studies on the application of conventional ET of composite pressure vessels.
The application of composite pressure vessels is of great interest due to tremendous weight saving. Nevertheless, ageing of CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastic) composites pressure vessels underlies complex interactions between metallic liner and composite and is not fully understood yet. One main challenge is the application of appropriate testing methods for detecting the influences of pressure cycles and creep behavior on the material. This contribution presents results achieved by using conventional eddy current testing (ET) and high frequency ET. Here, we could show that also conventional ET with low frequencies are useable to investigate pressure vessels of different material combinations like aluminum-CFRP and synthetics-CFRP.
Eine zentrale Aufgabe der zerstörungsfreien Prüfung und der Strukturüberwachung (engl. Structural Health Monitoring - SHM) mit Ultraschallwellen ist die Bewertung von Schäden in Bauteilen. In vielen Bauteilen, wie zum Beispiel platten- und schalenförmigen Strukturen, Rohrleitungen oder Laminaten, breitet sich der Ultraschall in Form geführter Wellen aus. Zwar haben geführte Wellen eine relativ große Reichweite innerhalb des Bauteils und ermöglichen so eine großflächige Prüfung, ihre multimodalen und dispersiven Eigenschaften erschweren jedoch die Analyse der vom Schaden kommenden Reflexionen. Eine Möglichkeit, die Messsignale zu interpretieren und die Schäden zu charakterisieren, ist deren Vergleich mit der Wellenausbreitung in einem digitalen Modell. Hierbei stellt sich die Aufgabe, den Schaden im digitalen Modell anhand der Messdaten zu rekonstruieren. Diese Rekonstruktion beschreibt ein inverses Problem, das mehrere Vorwärtsrechnungen braucht, um das Schadensmodell an die Messdaten anzupassen.Durch die kleine Wellenlänge von Ultraschallwellen sind klassische Vorwärtsmethoden wie die Finte Elemente Methode rechenintensiv, weshalb die Autoren die semi-analytische Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) benutzen, um den Rechenaufwand zu verringern. Im Beitrag wird ein inverses Verfahren basierend auf dem Automatischen Differenzieren in Kombination mit der SBFEM vorgestellt und an verschiedenen Schadenstypen in 2D-Querschnittmodellen von Wellenleitern getestet. In der präsentierten Vorstudie werden dafür „Messdaten“ aus unabhängigen Simulationen verwendet.
Eine zentrale Aufgabe der zerstörungsfreien Prüfung und der Strukturüberwachung (engl. Structural Health Monitoring - SHM) mit Ultraschallwellen ist die Bewertung von Schäden in Bauteilen. In vielen Bauteilen, wie zum Beispiel platten- und schalenförmigen Strukturen, Rohrleitungen oder Laminaten, breitet sich der Ultraschall in Form geführter Wellen aus. Zwar haben geführte Wellen eine relativ große Reichweite innerhalb des Bauteils und ermöglichen so eine großflächige Prüfung, ihre multimodalen und dispersiven Eigenschaften erschweren jedoch die Analyse der vom Schaden kommenden Reflexionen. Eine Möglichkeit, die Messsignale zu interpretieren und die Schäden zu charakterisieren, ist deren Vergleich mit der Wellenausbreitung in einem digitalen Modell. Hierbei stellt sich die Aufgabe, den Schaden im digitalen Modell anhand der Messdaten zu rekonstruieren. Diese Rekonstruktion beschreibt ein inverses Problem, das mehrere Vorwärtsrechnungen braucht, um das Schadensmodell an die Messdaten anzupassen. Durch die kleine Wellenlänge von Ultraschallwellen sind klassische Vorwärtsmethoden wie die Finte Elemente Methode rechenintensiv, weshalb die Autoren die semi-analytische Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) benutzen, um den Rechenaufwand zu verringern. Im Beitrag wird ein inverses Verfahren basierend auf dem Automatischen Differenzieren in Kombination mit der SBFEM vorgestellt und an verschiedenen Schadenstypen in 2D-Querschnittmodellen von Wellenleitern getestet. In der präsentierten Vorstudie werden dafür „Messdaten“ aus unabhängigen Simulationen verwendet.
Normung und Standardisierung in der zerstörungsfreien Prüfung finden auf nationaler, europäischer und internationaler Ebene statt. Durch die Übernahme von Leitungsfunktionen in diesen Gremien kann ein deutlicher steuernder Einfluss auf Themen und Inhalte der Normen genommen werden. Unabdingbar für den Erfolg ist zusätzlich das persönliche Engagement der Fachexpert*innen in den nationalen Gremien und den europäischen und internationalen Arbeitsgruppen. Denn wer nicht normt wird genormt und muss letztlich Regeln verwenden, die andere entsprechend ihrer eigenen Interessen gestalten. Voraussetzung für die Teilnahme in europäischen und internationalen Normungsgremien ist die Mitwirkung in den entsprechenden nationalen Spiegelgremien der nationalen Normungsinstitute, welche die europäischen und internationalen Aktivitäten spiegeln und die Fachexperten für die Mitarbeit autorisieren.
Gezeigt werden die relevante Gremienstruktur auf internationaler Ebene (ISO/TC 135 “Non-destructive testing”, ISO/TC 44/SC 5 “Testing and inspection of welds”), auf europäischer Ebene (CEN/TC 138 “Zerstörungsfreie Prüfverfahren”), die Struktur der nationalen deutschen Spiegelgremien, das Zusammenspiel der Gremien, und die Einflussmöglichkeiten.
An der BAM gibt es seit vielen Jahren Erfahrungen in der Entwicklung und im Bau speziell angepasster Wirbelstromsonden. Mit der Zielstellung, eine möglichst hohe Ortsauflösung zu erreichen, wurde vor einigen Jahren die sogenannte Eindrahtsonde (Patentanmeldung Nr. WO2015177341A1) entwickelt. Diese besteht aus der Kombination eines einzelnen dünnen Drahtes als Sender und GMR-Sensoren (giant magneto-resistance, Riesenmagnetwiderstand) als Empfänger. Beim Aufbau solcher Wirbelstromsonden hat sich der Einsatz sogenannter Starr-Flex-Leiterplatten bewährt. Der Aufbau und die Funktionsweise der Sensoren werden erläutert. Anhand spezieller Muster kleiner Vergleichsfehler werden Ortsauflösung, Richtungsabhängigkeit, Tiefenwirkung und Randeffekt hochauflösender Wirbelstromsonden aus Spulensystemen mit der Eindrahtsonde gegenübergestellt.
Die Magnetpulverprüfung ist eine weit verbreitete Prüfmethode für ferromagnetische Bauteile. Hierbei werden Oberflächenfehler wie Risse mit ferromagnetischem Pulver sichtbar gemacht, wodurch eine qualitative Bewertung des Bauteils ermöglicht wird. Allerdings können die Anzeigen kaum zu einer quantitativen Bewertung herangezogen werden. Hierfür sind Magnetfeldsensoren nötig, die die Stärke der Streufelder messen, wodurch z. B. die Tiefe der Risse abgeschätzt werden kann. Bei kommerziellen Magnetfeldsensoren sind die sensitiven Elemente auf Platinen angebracht bzw. in eine Verkapselung integriert. Hierdurch erhöht sich der Abstand der Elemente zur Oberfläche und kleine Fehler können unter Umständen nicht mehr detektiert werden. Auch wird eine automatisierte Prüfung komplexer Geometrien durch die starren Sonden erschwert.
Um Streufelder von kleinen Fehlern in komplexen Bauteilen quantitativ bewerten zu können, validiert die BAM den Einsatz neuartiger, flexibler Magnetfeldsensoren. Hierbei sind die sensitiven Elemente auf flexiblen Folien aufgebracht und lassen sich verformen, wodurch sie auf viele mögliche Oberflächenformen appliziert werden können. Es wird ein geringerer Abstand der Elemente zur Oberfläche erreicht und Streufelder von kleinen Defekten können besser aufgelöst werden. Zudem verlieren die Sensoren durch Verformung weder ihre Sensitivität noch werden sie hierdurch zerstört. Dies macht diese Sensoren zu perfekten Kandidaten für die quantitative Bewertung von Rissstreufeldern in komplex geformten, ferromagnetischen Bauteilen.
Der Beitrag präsentiert die Charakterisierung der Sensoren sowie erste Versuche an komplexen Bauteilen. Schließlich wird eine Einschätzung hinsichtlich weiterer Anwendungsmöglichkeiten gegeben.
With rising popularity and availability of additive manufacturing (AM), companies mainly in the aerospace sector, set high requirements on quality control of AM parts, especially produced with selective laser melting (SLM). Since it was shown that those parts are prawn to flaws like pores or cracks, every part needs to be tested. Therefore, NDT Methods, like eddy current testing (ET), could help to characterize SLM parts. Research on ET has shown, that offline ET with high spatial resolution MR (magneto resistive) sensor arrays is possible and that flaws as small as 50 µm could be detected while significantly reducing testing time. A first approach on automated online ET method for testing SLM parts is proposed in this contribution.
Zur Messung von Konzentrationen in Flüssigkeiten können akustische Sensoren genutzt werden. Ziel der vorliegend Arbeit ist es einen Sensor zu entwerfen der sehr hohe Messgenauigkeiten erzielen kann. Der Sensor besteht aus einem rechteckigen Rohr, welches auf einem Halbraum angebracht ist. Die Konzentrationsbestimmung erfolgt anhand des Resonanzverhaltens der Struktur, wodurch eine hohe Messgenauigkeit erreicht werden kann. Um den Sensors zu verwirklichen, muss eine Optimierung der Geometrie mit vielen Iterationsschritten durchlaufen werden. Da keine analytische Beschreibung des akustischen Verhaltens vorliegt, wird eine effiziente Simulationsmethode benötigt. Die Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) für prismatische Strukturen erscheint für die Simulation geeignet, da Teile der Geometrie ohne neue Vernetzung geändert werden können. Für die Berechnung des Sensors wird ein Modell der akustischen Fluid-Struktur Interaktion benötigt, das bisher nicht vorhanden ist.
Die Präsentation behandelt die Implementierung des Fluidmodells in die SBFEM und deren Validierung. Für die Validierung werden die Ergebnisse mit analytischen Beispielen ohne Fluid-Struktur Kopplung und mit Comsol-Ergebnissen der Dispersionskurven mit Wasser gefüllter Rohre verglichen.
Schließlich wird das neuartige Verfahren für die Modellierung der Sensorgeometrie angewendet. An einer einfachen Geometrie wird das Sensorprinzip zur Bestimmung der Salzkonzentration demonstriert.
Zur Messung von Konzentrationen in Flüssigkeiten können akustische Sensoren genutzt werden. Ziel der vorliegend Arbeit ist es einen Sensor zu entwerfen der sehr hohe Messgenauigkeiten erzielen kann. Der Sensor besteht aus einem rechteckigen Rohr, welches auf einem Halbraum angebracht ist. Die Konzentrationsbestimmung erfolgt anhand des Resonanzverhaltens der Struktur, wodurch eine hohe Messgenauigkeit erreicht werden kann. Um den Sensors zu verwirklichen, muss eine Optimierung der Geometrie mit vielen Iterationsschritten durchlaufen werden. Da keine analytische Beschreibung des akustischen Verhaltens vorliegt, wird eine effiziente Simulationsmethode benötigt. Die Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) für prismatische Strukturen erscheint für die Simulation geeignet, da Teile der Geometrie ohne neue Vernetzung geändert werden können. Für die Berechnung des Sensors wird ein Modell der akustischen Fluid-Struktur Interaktion benötigt, das bisher nicht vorhanden ist.
Die Präsentation behandelt die Implementierung des Fluidmodells in die SBFEM und deren Validierung. Für die Validierung werden die Ergebnisse mit analytischen Beispielen ohne Fluid-Struktur Kopplung und mit Comsol-Ergebnissen der Dispersionskurven mit Wasser gefüllter Rohre verglichen.
Schließlich wird das neuartige Verfahren für die Modellierung der Sensorgeometrie angewendet. An einer einfachen Geometrie wird das Sensorprinzip zur Bestimmung der Salzkonzentration demonstriert.