Development of phased array techniques to improve characterization of defect located in a component of complex geometry.

Ultrasonic inspection of complex geometry components has to cope with different problems: limited access of the area assumed to be insonified, beam misorientation and distortions, loss of sensitivity. Those harmful effects can lead to inspection performance degradations, especially in terms of defect detection and characterization. Phased array techniques may be used to overcome such difficulties, as they can provide an optimal mastering of the ultrasonic beam radiated through the inspected component. This paper presents some applications of phased array inspections carried out by the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the French Company of Electricity (EDF) in the framework of R&D studies. Inspections of components with varying profile (of planar and cylindrical parts, misalignment and local depression), and containing artificial reflectors have been carried out with pulse echo immersion techniques, using standard and phased arrays transducers. Optimal delay laws have been applied to preserve the beam characteristics in spite of the varying profile geometry encountered as the phased array transducer was moved over the component. Those delay laws allow to efficiently compensate the beam distortions generated by the profile geometry. They were computed using a specific model and compared to experimental delays obtained using through transmission tests. Experimental and simulation results showed that the defect detection and characterization performances were greatly enhanced using phased array techniques. In the presented examples, with standard transducers, defects located below the irregular parts of the specimen were partially detected, in accurately located or even missed, whereas phased array inspections enabled to detect and locate all of these defects.