Effect of variation in signal amplitude and transit time on reliability analysis of ultrasonic time of flight diffraction characterization of vertical and inclined cracks

The variation of amplitude and transit time of the diffracted signal from the crack-tip in complex geometry components and their resulting effect on the probability of detection (POD) and probability of sizing (POS) was studied. The diffracted signal amplitude has been evaluated from the standard expressions for diffraction coefficient, spatial attenuation and the transit time from the respective mathematical models for both vertical and inclined cracks. The same parameters namely the signal amplitude and the transit time have been measured through experiments conducted on simulated test specimens. It has been observed that the analytical and experimental results compare well with each other. Based on this result the trend and shape (width of the transition zone) of the POD/POS curves can be predicted.