EXPANDING THE CAPABILITY OF A LABORATORY ULTRASONIC TESTING FACILITY
Michael Moyer, David H. Gray · Materials Evaluation · 1973
A REMOTELY LOCATED, MEDIUM-SIZE, MULTIUSER COMPUTER HAS BEEN INTERFACED TO A GENERAL PURPOSE ULTRA-SONIC TESTING FACILITY TO ACCUMULATE, ANALYZE, AND MANIPULATE DATA, AND PLOT THE RESULTS IN A MATTER OF MINUTES. DATA MAY BE TAKEN ON FLAT PLATES AND PRODUCTS OF REVOLUTION. UP TO FOUR AXES OF TRANSDUCER MOTION MAY BE CONTROLLED IN ORDER TO SCAN COMPLEX GEOMETRIES. THE RF WAVEFORM CAN BE DIGITIZED AND SENT TO THE COMPUTER FOR FOURIER ANALYSIS. IN ADDITION, INDIVIDUAL POINTS SUCH AS THOSE GENERATED BY A STANDARD MAY BE STORED. ANALYSIS ROUTINES INCLUDE DETERMINATION OF DATA WHICH EXCEEDS FIXED THRESHOLDS, SCALING OF DATA TO A CALIBRATION CURVE, DETERMINATION OF PEAK SIGNALS WHEN SCANNING OVER FLAWS, INTEGRATION OF DATA OVER FIXED LENGTHS TO SMOOTH NOISE, AND FOURIER ANALYSIS OF RF WAVEFORMS. THE EXPANDED CAPABILITY OF THE SYSTEM GIVES THE EXPERIMENTER NEW TOOLS WITH WHICH TO TACKLE NDT PROBLEMS. /AUTHOR/