Abstract

In aerospace industries, new and advanced manufacturing technologies such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been developed. New technologies create innovative designing and manufacturing possibilities, while the safety is crucial and should not be compromised. This requires that the inspection methods should have high accuracy and reliability. Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods are hereby utilized to ensure the integrity of the manufactured components. One potential method is phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT) but the new application implies qualification of the technique and evaluation of the procedures. The inspection must be optimized for AM specific defect characteristics. The traditional approach of qualification work is associated with experiments, which are extensive and expensive. With the development of mathematical modelling of NDE methods in last decades, the experimental work can be assisted or partly replaced by the model-based data, provided that models are validated. The validation of the mathematical model can be done by comparing with other models, but it should finally be compared with physical experiments. In this paper an experimental validation of an ultrasonic PA model is presented. The experimental setup consists of a mechanized gantry system and an ultrasonic testing equipment with PA configuration incorporated. The simulation software – simSUNDT, developed by Chalmers University of Technology will be validated using this experimental setup.

How to Cite:

Lei, X. ., Wirdelius, H. . & Rosell, A. ., (2019) “Experimental validation of a phased array model applied in ultrasonic inspection of AM parts”, Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation .