A Defect Detection Method for the Surface of Metal Materials Based on an Adaptive Ultrasound Pulse Excitation Device and Infrared Thermal Imaging Technology

Abstract

Ultrasonic excitation has been widely used in the detection of microcracks on metal surfaces, but there are problems such as poor excitation effect of ultrasonic pulse, long time to reach the best excitation, and difficult to find microcracks. In this paper, an adaptive ultrasonic pulse excitation device and infrared thermal imaging technology have been combined, as well as their control method, to solve the problem. The adaptive ultrasonic pulse excitation device adds intelligent modules to realize automatic adjustment of detection parameters, which can quickly obtain reliable excitation; the multidegree-of-freedom base realizes the three-dimensional direction change of the ultrasonic gun to adapt to different excitation occasions. When the appropriate ultrasonic excitation makes microcracks in the resonance state, the microcracks can be frictionated, which produce heat rise with the temperature. Then, the microcrack defect can be detected by the infrared thermal instrument through the different surface temperatures with imaging recognition method. Our detection experiments of the titanium alloy plates and the aluminum alloy profiles of marine engineering show that the method can get reliable detection parameters in a short time and measure the crack length effectively. It can be used in many aspects such as crack detection in mechanical structures or complex equipment operating conditions and industrial production processes.

Research on Alternating Current Field Measurement Method for Buried Defects of Titanium Alloy Aircraft Skin

“…Radiographic testing is also associated with radioactive contamination [ 9 , 10 ]. Ultrasonic infrared thermography relies on heating the area of the defect to obtain an infrared thermal image, but the high stiffness of titanium alloys makes it difficult to achieve the required excitation energy for this method [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ].…”

Detection of Various Types of Metal Surface Defects Based on Image Processing

“…However, many technical problems need to be overcome to detect metal surface defects. For example, the detection effect varies with the shapes and causes of metal surface defects [10][11][12][13].…”