We focus on ultrasonic probes for nondestructive tests and evaluation. Transient characteristics of probes are important for nondestructive tests such as the pulse echo method. We previously reported the principle of measurement using a piezoelectric probe with triaxial sensitivities. In the results, it was calculated that the probe could transmit and receive particle displacement which contains normal and tangential components. It was confirmed that the probe had sensitivities in triaxial directions. However, its performance in terms of frequency and transient characteristics has not been evaluated. The purpose of this study is to design a probe by changing its shape to obtain better performance. The transient characteristics of probes in longitudinal and shear driving were evaluated by the inverse Fourier transformation of frequency responses of longitudinal and shear components, using the two-dimensional finite element method. As a result, the sensitivities at the dips of frequency characteristics increased when using our probe compared with those measured using conventional probes in longitudinal and shear driving. Hence, the performance in terms of the frequency response was improved by more than 3 dB under the conditions in this simulation. Also, the pulse width of impulse response was decreased by half compared with that of probes with conventional shapes.
In this study, we propose and evaluate an ultrasonic probe for the beam forming of longitudinal and shear waves by the two-dimensional finite element method. Ultrasonic probes for longitudinal and shear waves are used in industrial fields for nondestructive testing. Among the ultrasonic probes, array probes can undertake a range of inspections from a single location, and so are more flexible than single-element probes. Most types of array can be used to produce images at each test location. This allows rapid visualization of the internal structure of a component. In order to restrain artifacts for an ultrasonic array flaw-detecting method, we propose an array probe with three degrees of freedom. Operations of the probe were verified using the two-dimensional finite element method. In the case of transmission, we found that secondarily generated beams that might be artifacts were restrained by controlling the vibration direction of the proposed probes; for reception, an array of proposed probes could obtain the direction of particle displacement. Thus, the results suggest that an array of the proposed probes can distinguish longitudinal from shear waves.
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