Abstract
When a high-energy ultrasound propagates through a solid body that contains a crack or a delamination, the two faces of the defect do not ordinarily vibrate in unison, and dissipative phenomena such as friction, rubbing and clapping between the faces will convert some of the vibrational energy to heat. By combining this heating effect with infrared imaging, one can detect a subsurface defect in material efficiently. In this paper a detection of the welding defect of thin SUS 304 plates using the UIR (ultrasonic infrared imaging) technology is described. A low frequency (20kHz) ultrasonic transducer was used to infuse the welded thin SUS 304 plates with a short pulse of sound for 280ms. The ultrasonic source has a maximum power of 2kW. The surface temperature of the area under inspection is imaged by a thermal infrared camera that is coupled to a fast frame grabber in a computer. The hot spots, which are a small area around the defect tip and heated up highly, are observed. From the sequence of the thermosonic images, the location of defective or inhomogeneous regions in the welded thin SUS 304 plates can be detected easily.
