Sun Heum Lee , Kwan Sun Choi , Dong Sik Kim

The KIPS Transactions:PartB , Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 407-412, Oct. 2007
10.3745/KIPSTB.2007.14.6.407,   PDF Download:

Abstract

The performance of ultrasonic testing systems for industrial or medical purpose largely depends on the performance of ultrasonic transducers. Generally, the information about an ultrasonic transducer performance characteristics are expressed by the ultrasonic R/F signal back from a reflector and its frequency characteristics in the data sheet provided by manufacturers. In case of focused ultrasonic transducers, the two pieces of information can, however, hardly assure that the focused ultrasonic transducer would produce well-focused C-scan images. Therefore, we propose the measured size of focal spot and the reconstructed shape of effective focal zone in the focused sound field as novel measures for the performance evaluation of the focused ultrasonic transducers. The process of getting the both measures of the transducers is conducted by the implemented software including sound field scanning and virtual 3D reconstruction functions which requires the echo of a point reflector. The proposed method could, otherwise impossible in the existing method, effectively and simply distinguish superior ones among many transducers made in the same specification and be also used to detect the performance degradation due to the aging of the transducers. Eventually, the quality of performance of the ultrasonic testing systems for industrial or medical purpose is secured.

Statistics
Cite this article