Ultrasonic Imaging in Automatic and Manual Testing

Owing to the successful use of phased array probes in automatic testing machines, more and more applications can now be found in the field of manual inspections. Miniaturization of electronic components and improvements of processing speed allow the integration of phased array hardware into a small, battery driven instruments for fast ultrasonic imaging. The advantages of the phased array technique are obvious: • Real time display of the scan sector (sweep area for the sound field) • Top – Side – End view of the covered volume after a linear scan, when combined with a probe position encoder. • Ultrasonic images are easily understandable, even for non-experts. • Ultrasonic images allow a direct flaw location and evaluation, even offline with the captured A-scans . Applications and their results with automatic and manual testing will be described and this technique will be compared to the conventional technique.