Title Air-coupled, contact, and immersion ultrasonic non-destructive testing: comparison for bonding quality evaluation /
Authors Yilmaz, Bengisu ; Asokkumar, Aadhik ; Jasiūnienė, Elena ; Kažys, Rymantas Jonas
DOI 10.3390/app10196757
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Is Part of Applied sciences.. Basel : MDPI. 2020, vol. 10, iss. 19, art. no. 6757, p. 1-22.. ISSN 2076-3417
Keywords [eng] adhesive bonding ; contact testing ; immersion ultrasonic ; air-coupled testing ; air-coupled simulation ; guided waves ; defect sizing
Abstract [eng] The objective of this study is to compare the performance of different ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques for bonding quality evaluation. Aluminium-epoxy-aluminium single lap joints containing debonding in the form of release film inclusions have been investigated using three types of ultrasonic NDT methods: contact testing, immersion testing, and air-coupled testing. Apart from the traditional bulk wave ultrasound, guided wave testing was also performed using air coupled and contact transducers for the excitation of guided waves. Guided wave propagation within adhesive bond was numerically simulated. A wide range of inspection frequencies causing different ultrasonic wavelengths has been investigated. Average errors in defect sizing per ultrasonic wavelength have been used as a feature to determine the performance of each ultrasonic NDT technique. The best performance is observed with bulk wave investigations. Particularly, the higher frequencies (10–50 MHz) in the immersion testing performed significantly better than air-coupled testing (300 kHz); however, air coupled investigations have other advantages as contactless inspection. Whereas guided wave inspections show relatively lower accuracy in defect sizing, they are good enough to detect the presence of the debonding and enable to inspect long range. Even though each technique has its advantages and limitations, guided wave techniques can be practical for the preliminary in-situ inspection of adhesively bonded specimens.
Published Basel : MDPI
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2020
CC license CC license description