The Spec-Radiation Method for Layered Fluid Media

Abstract

The real-time evaluation for non-destructive air-coupled ultrasonic testing of panel materials is a big task for several industries. To make these tests more and more accurate, efficient and reliable calculation methods from ultrasonic holography are essential. In the past, we presented the spec-radiation method as a fast and accurate method for such tasks. The spec-radiation method calculates the sound field utilizing data from a measurement plane at another parallel or tilted plane, especially the sound field at the surface of a panel. This can be used to detect flaws. There is a limitation of the current method: using the data on the panel surface limits the accuracy of the detected flaws. A big step forward could be expected if the sound field in the material were known. As a first step, we developed the spec-radiation method forward to consider multiple material layers. For now, we made the major assumption that all layers have fluid-like properties. Hence, transversal waves were neglected. This extension of the spec-radiation method was validated utilizing an experiment. We present that flaws in the panel material can be detected with higher accuracy at a similar speed compared to our former approach.