This technology offers protection against product liability and, particularly due to automation, reduces production costs and can help optimize an entire plant.

Ultrasonic technology has been around for more than 40 years, initially with flaw detection and later wall thickness measurement in the steel industry. For issues of quality in manufacturing, the technology offers protection against product liability and, particularly due to automation, reduces production costs and can help optimize an entire plant.

By definition, ultrasonics is “the application of ultrasound.” It is often used in industry as a shorthand term for any equipment employing ultrasonic principles. Just a sample of the array of such equipment is represented here, in this month’s Tech Showcase.



NDT Systems’ ( www.ndtsystems.com ) BondaScope 350 Ultrasonic Bond Tester offers an Impedance Plane Resonance mode in addition to a user selectable Tone Burst or Pulsed, Pitch-Catch mode with Pulse Rates up to 300Hz.

The BondaScope 350 is well suited to inspecting metallic, nonmetallic and combination metallic-nonmetallic structures for a variety of anomalous conditions. These include measurable levels of unbonds, voids, delaminations, inclusions, porosity, fiber damage, core damage, bondline thickness variations and certain material properties.

Its display is a 3.9” Diag. LCD and is fully sunlight readable. The unit is 7.25” tall by 3.5” wide by 1.87” thick and weighs 1.8lbs (with all batteries installed). The Aluminum enclosure is capped with a medium durometer rubber top and bottom protecting sensitive surfaces from abrasion. There is an adjustable back strap that fits around the operator’s hand, as well as laminates, advanced fiber composites and honeycombs.



Dakota Ultrasonics’ ( www.dakotaultrasonics.com ) DFX series ultrasonic flaw detectors are full featured digital scopes designed to handle the simplest to the most difficult applications. Whether the application requires high penetration for materials that are difficult to measure, or high resolution for precision aerospace parts, the DFX series flaw detectors are equipped with the necessary features to do the job. They can go where you go, to do the work you do, saving you time and money, making your inspections fast and accurate. The units feature: Transflective Color TFT Display, Broad & Narrow Band Amplifier, Square Wave Pulser (Active Edge), Extruded Aluminum Case (IP65), Digital Thickness Display, DAC/TCG/AWS/DGS and Automatic Calibration.



Boeing Automated Systems’ ( www.boeing.com ) Automated Ultrasonic Scanning Systems (AUSS) offer an enhanced value for high performance composite inspection in fabrication facilities that require rapid throughput and sophisticated motion control, data acquisition and analysis capabilities. The Boeing family of AUSS products are fully automated c-scan ultrasonic inspection systems that provide an improved value by combining high throughput, outstanding data acquisition results with unequalled reliability.

The systems features fully integrated systems for one button scanning operations, multi-processor configuration systems providing simultaneous operations during scanning, multiple mechanical configurations available to suit specific needs, through and pulse echo inspections from each side in a single scan, even on non-parallel surfaces, seamless re-start, re-scan, sub-scan functions, Part Shape Map rotation for optimized scanning orientation, compound curve part scanning in any orientation and 3D to 2D Mapping for one-to-one 1 flaw sizing on curved surfaces, either CAD generated or taught.

AUSS products are provided as turnkey systems with complete training, documentation, and initial operating period support. The foundation and control room are typically provided by the customer or Boeing can provide this service.



Tecnar’s ( www.tecnar.com ) LUT gauge is an online thickness measuring tool that is changing the way steel tubes and pipes are manufactured. The LUT (pronounced el-you-tee) gauge provides flexibility, ease of use and accuracy unequalled by other sensors. The LUT gauge gives fast information for rapid identification and correction of production problems.

LUT gauge enables rapid verification of production tolerances without the need to wait for a cool down period; wall thickness measurements for a very broad range of outer diameter; gauging with a mandrel is still inside the tube, without affecting the accuracy of the measurement; acquiring data even with significant tube motion, (linear as well as bouncing).