Development of air-coupled ultrasonic testing for efficient nondestructive inspection of civil structures

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K14019
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Structural engineering/Earthquake engineering/Maintenance management engineering
• Research Institution: Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Hirose Sohichi 東京工業大学, 環境・社会理工学院, 教授 (00156712)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 空気超音波 / 最適設計 / ダイシング技術 / 有限要素法 / 非接触非破壊検査

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, an air-coupled ultrasonic transducer is optimally designed on the basis of numerical finite element analyses, in order to improve the efficiency of transmission and receipt processes in air-coupled ultrasonic testing, which is one of non-contact nondestructive methods. The key point of the proposed optimal design method is not only to estimate best thicknesses of matching layers but also to introduce shape processing using dicing technique for a matching layer. Three-dimensional numerical analysis is carried out for a single cell of periodic structures with dicing interval to find optimal parameters for periodic cell interval, dicing dimensions and matching layer thicknesses. A prototype of air-coupled transducer based on the numerical analysis shows 1.63 and 2.21 times sensitivities of transmission and receipt, respectively, compared with the commercial one.

Free Research Field

応用力学