The transfer of ultrasonic energy in the diffraction technique for crack sizing

During the past five years a programme of work has been carried out at the Harwell NDT Centre concerned with the use of scattered or diffracted ultrasound in the sizing of defects. The progress made in this direction and some of the possible lines of further research have been indicated in other papers.^1–3 This diffraction technique has been evaluated on a number of fatigue cracked specimens and it has been found that accuracies in crack sizing consistently better than $\text{1}\text{2}$ mm have been achieved. The technique is thus thought to be on the verge of application to practical ndt problems.The basis of the sizing technique is the recognition and subsequent timing of various discrete ultrasonic pulses, as will be outlined later. The scope of the technique thus depends on these signals remaining both well separated and large enough to be resolved in a wide range of examination geometries. The purpose of the present paper is to consider the mechanisms by which two of the ultrasonic pulses of importance in the diffraction technique are produced. In this connection the current theoretical situation is reviewed and this is compared, where appropriate, with experimental measurements taken during the period of this work.