Arrangement Of Array Elements Research Articles

3D Hybrid modeling for the ultrasonic phased array inspection of porosity in heavy plates: Simulation and experimental validation

Quantitative NDT modeling and simulation tools are important in design and fabrication of ultrasonic phased array probes with optimum characteristics and reduce the number of experimental efforts and development time. In order to achieve high accuracy (Amplitude deviation < 1 dB) with a low computational time in the simulation, the modeling tools require not only the high-frequency approximation of the ultrasonic wave propagation but also the high-precision electro-acoustic coupling model. This paper describes a computationally efficient 3D time-dependent hybrid model for the simulation of ultrasonic phased array inspection of porosity in heavy plates. This method combines the results of both 3D finite element analysis (PZFLex-FEA) and the semi-analytical ultrasonic simulation “Ray-Tracing”. As a first step, we demonstrate the FEA modeling of an ultrasonic phased array probe, which includes the full 1-3 piezocomposite design with the arrangement of array elements, conducting electrodes, multi-phase backing material, acoustical matching layer and electrical circuit of a 50 Ohm coaxial cable. In the current FEA simulation, we considered the acoustical and electrical cross-talk between the adjacent elements of an ultrasonic array sensor. In the second step, the FEA-simulated ultrasonic pulse-echo signal and its frequency spectrum of an array element in the farfield region are further used as the reference input signal in the CIVA-UT software to simulate the imaging of porosity in heavy plates, quantitatively. The design of the 3D wedge-geometry of the application specific array sensor is modeled and optimized using the CIVA raytracing and multi-phase backing models. The real excitation pulse of the industrial ultrasonic testing equipment “ROMIS (ROSEN Modular Inspection System)” is also included in the simulation to achieve high accuracy in the current hybrid modeling. The dependency of the detectability of the porosity on the frequency of the array sensor and the active element group so-called “Virtual Probe” are quantitatively analyzed. Finally, the 3D hybrid model simulated Time Corrected Gain (TCG) curves of the porosity like defects in the reference steel plates are compared with the real experiments and a good quantitative agreement is achieved.

3D Hybrid Modeling for the Ultrasonic Phased Array Inspection of Porosity in Heavy Plates: Simulation and Experimental Validation

Quantitative non-destructive testing (NDT) modelling and simulation tools are important in design and fabrication of ultrasonic phased array (UTPA) sensors with optimum characteristics and reduce the number of experimental efforts and development time. In order to achieve high accuracy with a low computational time in the simulation, the modeling tools require not only the high-frequency approximation of the ultrasonic wave propagation but also the high-precision electro-acoustic coupling model. In this work, an application specific 4 MHz, 32-element linear phased array probe with an optimized angle beam wedge for the inspection of porosity in heavy plates was developed based on the new 3D hybrid modeling approach. As a first step, we performed the FEA modeling of an UTPA sensor, which includes the full 1-3 piezo-composite design with the arrangement of array elements, conducting electrodes, multi-phase damping material, acoustical matching layer and the electrical circuit of a 50 Ω coaxial cable. In addition, the real excitation pulse of an industrial UT equipment was included in the current modelling to achieve the high accuracy in the simulated result. In the second step, the FEA simulated pulse-echo characteristics of an array element were further used as the reference signal in the CIVA-UT Software to simulate the imaging of porosity in heavy plates, quantitatively. Furthermore, the 3D wedge-geometry of the array sensor was modeled and optimized to suppress the unwanted wedge-boundary reflected echoes and to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the detected signals. The 3D hybrid model simulated Time Corrected Gain (TCG) curves for the 3 mm SDH at different depths in the reference steel plate were compared with the real experiments and a good quantitative agreement was achieved.

Optimization of a random linear ultrasonic therapeutic array based on a genetic algorithm

Given their advantage of suppressing grating lobes, randomly arranged linear arrays have potential for use in ultrasonic treatment. The current work proposes a method based on genetic algorithm to optimize the random arrangement of array elements, so that the suppression effect of grating lobes can be significantly improved with reduced calculating time. The maximum and average kerfs of array elements are used as genes, and the ratio of the maximum to the secondary maximum sound pressure at the focal plane is used as the optimized target. Typically, the calculation requirements of the current method can be reduced to ∼ 25% of the traversing method. We further discuss how the kerf width, the effective ratio of element areas and the ratio of focal distance to array aperture affect the suppression of grating lobes. For a typical linear array with 32 elements (1-MHz operating frequency, 1.5-mm element width and 150-mm focal distance), the results suggest that the grating lobes are suppressed well when (1) the ratio of maximum width to average width of the element is between 5 and 8, (2) the ratio of the effective element area to the area of the whole array is between 0.5 and 0.9, and (3) the ratio of the effective emission aperture to the actual emission aperture of the array is as large as possible. Based on optimized parameters, an experimental array was fabricated and the measured results of corresponding sound field were entirely consistent with the simulated results (Given her role as an Associate Editor of this journal, Juan Tu had no involvement in the peer-review of articles for which she was an author and had no access to information regarding the peer-review. Full responsibility for the peer-review process for this article was delegated to another Editor of this journal.).

Variable Aperture Method of Ultrasonic Annular Array for the Detection of Addictive Manufacturing Titanium Alloy

The ultrasonic annular array transducer usually has a stronger focusing acoustic field than the linear array and matrix transducer with the same number of array elements, and is more suitable for the detection of large thickness and high attenuation components. However, due to the special arrangement of array elements, the focusing beam cannot be deflected and has a large near field, which limits its application in practical detection. The element parameters of annular array transducer are often designed and analyzed according to the 2-D acoustic field model of a linear array transducer. Therefore, the 3-D acoustic field distribution model of the annular array transducer is established, and the influence of the element parameters on its spatial acoustic field focusing characteristics is analyzed. The design criteria of the array element division mode and element size are proposed, which can avoid the generation of high-energy side lobe and grating lobe, and have good axial acoustic field. Then, the influence of excitation aperture on the energy and size of focal spot at different depths is discussed. The dynamic focusing method with variable aperture of annular array is established, and the C-scan detection experiment is carried out on the addictive manufacturing titanium alloy specimen. The detection results show that the variable aperture method has better central amplitude consistency and imaging accuracy for different depth defects, and has better near surface detection ability than the fixed aperture method.

Dual frequency sound absorption with an array of shunt loudspeakers

Transformer noise is dominated by low frequency components, which are hard to be controlled with traditional noise control approaches. The shunt loudspeaker consisting of a closed-box loudspeaker and a shunt circuit has been proposed as an effective sound absorber by storing and dissipating the electrical energy converted from the incident sound. In this paper, an array of shunt loudspeakers is proposed to control the 100 Hz and 200 Hz components of transformer noise. The prototype under tests has a thickness of 11.8 cm, which is only 1/28 of the wavelength of 100 Hz. The sound absorption performance of the array under random incidence is analyzed with the parallel impedance method, and the arrangement of array elements is optimized. The test results in a reverberation room show that the proposed array has sound absorption coefficients of 1.04 and 0.93 at 100 Hz and 200 Hz, respectively, which provides potential of applying this type of thin absorbers for low-frequency sound control.

Construction of thinned phased antenna arrays by coding the positions of array elements in a equidistant grid of nodes on the basis of the properties of prime and composite number moduli

A method for construction of thinned phased antenna arrays (PAAs) by coding the positions of array elements in an equidistant grid of nodes on the basis of the properties of prime and composite number moduli is proposed. (Such arrays are abbreviated as PAA-C.) An algorithm for the arrangement of array elements is described, examples of the arrangement of elements are presented, and the array patterns and their cross sections are calculated. A method for suppression of sidelobes of the PAA-C pattern is proposed. The method is based on the multiplication of the patterns of PAA-Cs differing in their codes corresponding to one modulus or in coding by twin prime numbers.

50 kHz 체장어군탐지기용 분할 빔 음향 변환기의 개발

An improved split-beam transducer for a 50 kHz fish-sizing echo sounder was developed. The main objective of this study was to minimize the side lobe level in the beam pattern and the distance between acoustic centers for adjacent transducer quadrants in the geometrical arrangement of array elements while maintaining a given number of transducer elements and beam width. To achieve these goals, a 32-element planar array transducer (<TEX>$6{\times}6$</TEX> array with one element in each corner missing) was designed using the Dolph-Chebyshev shading function to suppress side lobes in the array beam pattern and fabricated by arranging the inter-element spacing to be substantially equal to half the wavelength using the transducer element of 0.4 times the wavelength in diameter. The performance characteristics of this split-beam transducer were evaluated in the experimental water tank of <TEX>$5m{\times}5m{\times}6m$</TEX> (length<TEX>${\times}$</TEX>height<TEX>${\times}$</TEX>width). In this study, the design goal of the beam width and side lobe level for transmitting a beam pattern was initially set at <TEX>$21^{\circ}$</TEX> and -30 dB, respectively. However, the measured beam width at 3 dB was <TEX>$21^{\circ}$</TEX> in both directions with side lobe levels of -24.7 dB in the horizontal plane and -25.6 dB in the vertical plane. The averaged beam width at -3 dB of the receiving beam patterns for four receiving quadrants was <TEX>$31.4^{\circ}$</TEX>. The transmitting voltage response was 161.5 dB (re <TEX>$1{\mu}Pa$</TEX>/V at 1 m) at 50.23 kHz with a bandwidth of 2.16 kHz, and the averaged receiving sensitivity for four receiving quadrants was -178.13 dB (re 1 V/<TEX>${\mu}Pa$</TEX>) at 49.8 kHz with a bandwidth of 2.64 kHz.

Optimum Spatial Arrangement of Array Elements for Suppression of Grating-Lobes of Radar Cross Section

A new method to optimize the radar cross section (RCS) for array antennas is presented. A previous work has reported that the RCS of an array is the product of the array RCS factor multiplying the element RCS factor. In this method, the strong scattering from an equally spaced array can be considerably reduced at some certain directions by optimizing the array RCS factor. With the proposed method, the optimized array will scatter waves at a much lower level against prescribed incident directions. In order to illustrate the validation of the proposed method, a planar dipole array and a linear array with bowtie antenna elements are designed and optimized by the proposed method. The numerical and simulated results show that the RCS pattern of equally spaced array generally has some grating-lobes at some certain directions. Hence, the proposed method is applied to suppress these grating-lobes to design a low RCS array. The algorithmically optimized and simulated results validate that the proposed method can help to suppress these grating-lobes.

Fractal design of multiband and low side-lobe arrays

Most array factor design techniques are highly dependent on the operating wavelength. In this paper, a novel technique based on fractal structures is described for multiband operation. The analysis is focused in two different approaches: the fractal spatial arrangement of array elements and the fractal design of array factors. Although the patterns of fractal arrays show some interesting similarity properties at several bands, the directivity is not held constant through the bands. Nevertheless, such structures have been shown to be useful for designing low side-lobe arrays with equally weighted current elements. On the other hand, the fractal array factors presented do keep the same shape at several bands because they are designed as selfsimilar curves. The arrays that would synthesize such patterns present a characteristic power-law current distribution analogous to the spectral distribution of the bandlimited fractal Weierstrass function.

Elliptical boundary arrays for coherent and incoherent imaging

In the imaging of far-field source distributions by a planar array of antenna elements, the quality of the image is determined by the beam pattern of the array. The physical size of the aperture ultimately determines its resolution capability, and the excitation or weighting imparted to the aperture controls the sidelobe characteristics. For a given number and spacing of antenna elements, the largest physical apertures are formed if the elements are distributed only around the boundaries of the apertures. This, however, results in beam patterns with rather high sidelobes. Thus it is of clear practical advantage to have available a technique for effectively filling in the interior of such a boundary aperture through appropriate signal processing applied to the boundary element signals. The paper builds on early results concerning such a technique, which made use of incoherent (receive-only) imaging systems. It is shown that for both incoherent imaging, the latter implemented using a transmit/receive scheme, it is possible to obtain such a filling-in or interpolation effect when imaging with an array composed of an elliptical (or circular) arrangement of array elements. Explicit synthesis theorems which give a specific constructive approach to implementing this effective interpolation to any desired degree of accuracy are given, and this approach is illustrated by giving the results of simulations, both with and without element location errors.