Non-Kramers doublet ground state in a quaternary cubic compound PrRu_(2)In_(2)Zn_(18) investigated by ultrasonic measurements

We performed ultrasonic measurements on a quaternary cubic compound PrRu_(2)In_(2)Zn_(18) to explore the ground state properties derived from non-Kramers Γ_(3) doublet of Pr^(3+).PrRu_(2)In_(2)Zn_(18) is a quaternary derivative of the ternary compound PrRu_(2)Zn_(20) that exhibits a structural phase transition at T_S=138 K.In PrRu_(2)In_(2)Zn_(18),the Zn atoms at the 16c site in PrRu_(2)Zn_(20) are selectively replaced by In atoms.A monotonic increase was observed in the temperature dependence of elastic constants C_L=(C_(11)+2C_(12)+4C_(44))/3 and C_(T)=(C_(11)-C_(12)+C_(44))/3 in the temperature range around T_(S) to which an elastic softening was observed in(C_(11)-C_(12))/2 for PrRu_(2)Zn_(20).The disappearance of the softening indicates that the structural transition in PrRu_(2)Zn_(20) is suppressed by the substitution of Zn ions by In ones with a larger ionic radius.Alternatively,the C_(T) of PrRu_(2)In_(2)Zn_(18) exhibits a precursor Curie-type elastic softening toward low temperatures being responsible for the non-Kramers Γ_(3) ground state.We discuss the ground state and the evolution of the elastic properties of the different single-crystal samples of PrRu_(2)In_(2)Zn_(18) grown under different conditions.

Thickness measurement approach for plasma sprayed coatings using ultrasonic testing technique

The special ultrasonic testing system has been developed for thickness measurement of plasma sprayed coatings. The ultrasonic immersion method was used to obtain stable coupling condition and avoid other disadvantages of contact method. Spherical acoustic lens were designed to focus ultrasonic beam so as to improve beam directivity and concentrate ultrasonic energy. To increase testing precision and avoid mussy wave signals, moderate pulse width and frequency of the transducer has been selected. The displacement of transducer in X-Y-Z directions was precisely manipulated by step-controlled system to insure the accuracy of focus length and repetition of measurement. Optimized testing conditions (with the transducer of center frequency of 10 MHz and crystal diameter of 8 mm, focus length of 9.5 mm, diameter of focal column of 0. 1 mm and length of focal column of 0.27 mm) were selected to determine the thickness between 285 -414 μm of ZrO2 coatings plasma sprayed on the nickel based superalloy. The frequency interval of the periodic extremums in ultrasonic power spectra decreases with increasing coating thickness. The ultrasonic results accord with those of metallographical method.

Detecting Impact Damage in Carbon Fabric/epoxy-matrix Composites by Ultrasonic F-scan and Electrical Resistance Measurement

The status and the variation of electrical resistance of impacted carbon fiber/epoxy-matrix composites were studied by ultrasonic F-scan and electrical resistance measurement The experimental results shows that impact damage energy threshold value of carbon fabric/epoxy-matrix composites can determine by using ultrasonic F-scan. When the impact energy exceeds the threshold value, damage is generated in composites. Electrical resistance of impacted composites is changed owing to the contact of each carbon fiber unit in composites, which cause a change of the series-parallel in conductors. The veracity of detecting impact damage in composites can be improved in this case.

APPROACH OF IMPROVING PRECISION IN ULTRASONIC DOPPLER BLOODSTREAM SPEED MEASUREMENT BY CHAOS-BASED FREQUENCY DETECTING

It is critical for cerebral vascular disease diagnosis through Doppler to detect the maximum and the minimum of the carotid blood flow speed accurately. A kind of Duffing system under an external periodic power with dump is introduced in the letter, numerical analysis is carried out by four-order Runge-Kutta method. An oscillator array is designed according to the frequency of the ultrasonic wave. When the external signals are inputted, computational algorithm is used to scan the array in turn and analyze the result, and the frequency can be determined. Based on the methods above, detecting the carotid blood flow speed accurately is realized. The Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of-20.23dB is obtained by the result of experiments. In conclusion, the SNR has been improved and the precision of the measured bloodstream speed has been increased, which can be 0.069% to 0.13%.

Analysis and measurement of acoustic power in plastics ultrasonic welding process

A measuring principle for acoustic power in plastics ultrasonic welding process is introduced in this paper. Signal detection circuits of current, voltage, frequency, power for ultrasonic transducer of plastic ultrasonic welder are developed. A computer controlled measuring system is designed to sample the signals of welding process parameters. By using the designed system, the acoustic power curve during welding is calculated, saved, and displayed. And the relation between fusion state of plastics workpieces and input energy of joint is analyzed.

FPGA-based High-precision Measurement Algorithm for the Ultrasonic Echo Time of Flight

Based on the evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of high-precision digital time interval measuring algorithms, and combined with the principle of the typical time-difference ultrasonic flow measurement, the requirements for the measurement of echo time of flight put forward by the ultrasonic flow measurement are analyzed. A new high-precision time interval measurement algorithm is presented, which combines the pulse counting method with the phase delay interpolation. The pulse counting method is used to ensure a large dynamic measuring range, and a double-edge triggering counter is designed to improve the accuracy and reduce the counting quantization error. The phase delay interpolation is used to reduce the quantization error of pulse counting for further improving the time measurement resolution. Test data show that the systexn for the measurement of the ultrasonic echo time of flight based on this algorithm and implemented on an Field Programmable Gate Army（FleA） needs a relatively short time for measurement, and has a measurement error of less than 105 ps.

Simultaneous measurement of velocity profile and liquid film thickness in horizontal gas–liquid slug flow by using ultrasonic Doppler method

Horizontal gas-liquid two-phase flows widely exist in chemical engineering,oil/gas production and other important industrial processes.Slug flow pattern is the main form of horizontal gas-liquid flows and characterized by intermittent motion of film region and slug region.This work aims to develop the ultrasonic Doppler method to realize the simultaneous measurement of the velocity profile and liquid film thickness of slug flow.A single-frequency single-channel transducer is adopted in the design of the field-programmable gate array based ultrasonic Doppler system.A multiple echo repetition technology is used to improve the temporal-spatial resolution for the velocity profile.An experiment of horizontal gas-liquid two-phase flow is implemented in an acrylic pipe with an inner diameter of 20 mm.Considering the aerated characteristics of the liquid slug,slug flow is divided into low-aerated slug flow,high-aerated slug flow and pseudo slug flow.The temporal-spatial velocity distributions of the three kinds of slug flows are reconstructed by using the ultrasonic velocity profile measurement.The evolution characteristics of the average velocity profile in slug flows are investigated.A novel method is proposed to derive the liquid film thickness based on the instantaneous velocity profile.The liquid film thickness can be effectively measured by detecting the position and the size of the bubbles nearly below the elongated gas bubble.Compared with the time of flight method,the film thickness measured by the Doppler system shows a higher accuracy as a bubble layer occurs in the film region.The effect of the gas distribution on the film thickness is uncovered in three kinds of slug flows.

Research on intelligent ultrasonic thickness measurement system applied to large area of hull

For a ship in service,seawater corrosion is unavoidable. In order to ensure navigation safety and master the steel plate thickness in service ship,thickness of the ship steel plate must be tested periodically by a scientific method. After consideration of an actual situation of thickness measurement,the bearing mechanism of ultrasonic thickness meter probe has been designed on the basis of wall-climbing robot,and preliminary experiments have been carried out. The device is mainly used for thickness measurement of a large area of ship hull plate when the docking ship has been sandblasted. Efficiency and safety can be improved to finish thickness measurement by using the device.

Roller Profile Online Measurement Based on Ultrasonic Circulation Pulse-echo Technology

In order to meet the high precision requirement of wide steel strip in industry field, a novel online measurement of roller profile based on sonic circulation and pulse-echo technology was introduced. All kinds of the factors influencing the accuracy of roller profile online measurement were analyzed in detail and error compensation analysis of system was accordingly presented. In order to reduce count error, field program gate array(FPGA) was introduced and a highprecision data acquisition system was designed based on digital phase-shift technology. Experiments indicate that the standard deviation of measure data was 7.27 μm, which showed the feasibility and validity of the proposed method, and realized the roll profile measurement with high precision.

3D attitude measurement by means of spread spectrum modulated ultrasonic wave

Local position and attitude measurement methods are necessary for the navigation of autonomous robots and the other applications. In this paper, a 3D attitude measurement method is proposed. This method uses the spread spectrum modulated ultrasonic wave for the measurement of the pseudo-distance of each pathway between transmitter and receiver elements that are arranged in an array. The relative attitude between transmitter and receiver unit could be calculated from the relationship between these pseudo-distances. The use of spread spectrum modulation enables the high accuracy, noise tolerance, and coexistence of multiple transmitter devices by code division multiple access (CDMA) between transmitter and receiver elements. A pair of transmitter and receiver prototype for proposed method was manufactured, and the fundamental performance was examined in experiments. As a result, accuracy of σ=0.78 mm in the pseudo-distance measurement of each pathway between transmitter and receiver elements was confirmed, and about 0.01 rad resolution in the attitude measurement was also confirmed.

Satellite Rotation Modulation Measurement System Based on Ultrasonic Motor

Rotation modulation technique is generally used to improve the performance of aviation and marine inertial navigation system.Considering of the performance requirements from current aerospace to MEMS micro-nano inertial device,this paper proposedrotary inertial device modulation technology application methods on the satellite.Firstly,taking the advantage ofultrasonic motor,like high resolution,fast response,electromagnetic compatibility,a lowmagnetic,high-precision and appropriate for use on satellite ultrasonic motor modulation turntable was developed.Then,through theoretical modeling and simulations,the rotation modulation technology was verified to improvethe precise of satellite attitude measurementeffectively,equivalent toimprove the accuracy of MEMS gyro over an order of magnitude.This work helpsachieve the application of rotation modulation technology in aerospace and acceleratethe promotion of the MEMS gyro in satellite attitude measurement.

On-line measurement of electrical variables of the transducer during ultrasonic welding and cutting

A measurement system for high power electrical variables with ultrasonic frequency was established. It can measure the effective values of the voltage and the current, the active power, the phase difference of voltage and current, the frequency of the transducer during ultrasonic welding and cutting. In sampling circuits of the system, the measured current is sensed by using a no capacitance and no inductance precision resistor and is treated with a difference amplifier, the measured voltage is processed by using a proportional amplifier. For achieving good amplitude frequency characteristics and rapid measurement of high frequency signals, the resistors, capacitors and amplifiers used in the system are rationally selected. Calibrating experiments show that relative errors are less than 1% for voltage and current effective values and less than 2.5% for active power, and absolute errors are ±1 Hz for frequency and ±1.7° for phase difference of voltage and current in the range of 17～23 kHz .

Field measurement method for ultrasonic transducer based on inverse Abel transform

A new reflection approach for field distribution measurement of ultrasonic transducers was investigated. Instead of a point-like reflection target （rigid sphere） or thin wires （line-like targets）, a line response function of experimental knife-edge distribution combined with the inverse Abel transforms was used to estimate the lateral beam distributions of ultrasonic transducers. The measurement steps were as follows：① A knife-edge was scanned perpendicularly to acoustic beam axis of the transducer using an ultrasonic C-scan system to obtain its ultrasonic image line response function, ② the transverse beam distribution was solved by the inverse Abel transforms, and ③ experiments were performed to obtain the lateral beam profiles of two transducers, with and without focus, and the results were compared with those from a hydrophone. The results showed that this method was effective for ultrasonic field measurement and could be as a substitute for hydrophone in most cases.

Ultrasonic Resonator Techniques for Broad-band Spectroscopy and for High-resolution Sound Velocity Measurement of Liquids

This review gives a short introduction into the principles of ultrasonic measurement techniques for liquids, using cavity resonators. Guidelines for the resonator design in broad-band ultrasonic stxctroscopy as well as in high-resolution single-frequncy or narrowband applications are presented. Deviations of the field configuration in real cells frtxn that in an ideal resonator are discussed and relations for the mode spectrum of cavity fields are given. Recent resonator measurement procedures and methods of data evaluation are mentioned briefly. Some examples of measurements show the extended usability of ultrasonic resonator techniques in basic science and in a wide range of applications for rrkaterials characterization, in manufacturing processes, as well as in control routines.

Ultrasonic echo denoising in liquid density measurement based on improved variational mode decomposition

The ultrasonic echo in liquid density measurement often suffers noise,which makes it difficult to obtain the useful echo waveform,resulting in low accuracy of density measurement.A denoising method based on improved variational mode decomposition(VMD)for noise echo signals is proposed.The number of decomposition layers of the traditional VMD is hard to determine,therefore,the center frequency similarity factor is firstly constructed and used as the judgment criterion to select the number of VMD decomposition layers adaptively;Secondly,VMD algorithm is used to decompose the echo signal into several modal components with a single modal component,and the useful echo components are extracted based on the features of the ultrasonic emission signal;Finally,the liquid density is calculated by extracting the amplitude and time of the echo from the modal components.The simulation results show that using the improved VMD to decompose the echo signal not only can improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the echo signal to 20.64 dB,but also can accurately obtain the echo information such as time and amplitude.Compared with the ensemble empirical mode decomposition(EEMD),this method effectively suppresses the modal aliasing,keeps the details of the signal to the maximum extent while suppressing noise,and improves the accuracy of the liquid density measurement.The density measurement accuracy can reach 0.21%of full scale.

Three-Dimensional Velocity Distribution Measurement Using Ultrasonic Velocity Profiler with Developed Transducer

This study describes an ultrasonic velocity profiler that uses a new ultrasonic array transducer with unique 5-element configuration, with all five elements acting as transmitters and four elements as receivers. The receivers are designed to reduce the amount of uncertainty. As the fluid moves through this setup, four Doppler frequencies are obtained. The multi-dimensional velocity information along the measurement line can be reconstructed. The transducer has a compact geometry suitable for a wide range of applications, including narrow flow areas. The transducer’s basic frequency and sound pressure are selected and evaluated to be compatible with the application. First, to confirm the measurement ability, the measurement of the developed system in two-dimensional flow is validated by comparing it to the theoretical data. The uncertainty of measurement was within 15%. Second, the three-dimensional measurement in turbulent and swirling flow is proved experimentally to check the applicability of the proposed technique.

Application of Ultrasonic Measurements for Determination of Setting and Hardening in Cement Paste

Concrete setting and hardening processes are the most critical phases during construction works, influencing properties of a concrete structure. The initial set is important as it provides an estimate when concrete has reached a point that it can no longer he vibrated without damaging concrete. The point at which final set occurs is important since it provides an estimate when the development of concrete strength and stiffness starts. In this study, experimental work is performed under laboratory conditions to indentify the setting time of cement paste using ultrasonic waves. Correlation between the ultrasonic wave parameters （speed, amplitude and energy） passing through the fresh cement paste and setting time determined using the Vicat test method is analyzed. A method of acoustic emission is also used and acoustic signals recorded in cement paste during hydration are presented.

The Design Liquid-level Monitoring System of Adopting the Ultrasonic Sensing Technology

Utilizing the technology of Ultrasonic wave,relevant test arithmetic and the PC to carry on monitoring,controlling and cen-tralized management of the liquid-level in the liquid container. It can prevent from keeping in touch with the examined liquid,not only has increased the continuous working time of the system greatly,simplifying maintenance of the sensor conveniently,can also realize overhauling in producing and boost the productivity and management level. The working principle,hardware structure of the instrument and the design method are presented,and the selection of sensor and MCU is discussed in detail in this paper. MCU are used to control the emission and receiving. Then the liquid-level are calculated,which makes the design more intelligent.

Applications of Ultrasonic Techniques in Oil and Gas Pipeline Industries: A Review

The diversity of ultrasound techniques used in oil and gas pipeline plants provides us with a wealth of information on how to exploit this technology when combined with other techniques, in order to improve the quality of analysis. The fundamental theory of ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technology is offered, along with practical limitations as related to two factors (wave types and transducers). The focus is limited to the two main techniques used in pipe plants: First, straight beam evaluation and second, angle beam evaluation. The depth of defect (DD) is calculated using straight beam ultrasonic in six different materials according to their relative longitudinal wave (LW) velocities. The materials and respective velocities of LW are: rolled aluminum (6420 m/s), mild steel (5960 m/s), stainless steel-347 (5790 m/s), rolled copper (5010 m/s), annealed copper (4760 m/s), and brass (4700 m/s). In each material eight defects are modeled;the first represents l00% of the material thickness (D), 50.8 mm. The other seven cases represent the DD, as 87.5% of the material thickness, 75%, 62.5%, 50%, 37.5%, 25%, and 12.5%, respectively. Using angle beam evaluation, several parameters are calculated for six different reflection angles (βR) (45°, 50°, 55°, 60°, 65° and 70°). The surface distance (SD), ½skip distance (SKD), full SKD, and 1½SKD,½sound path (SP) length, full SP, and 1½SP are calculated for each βR. The relationship of SKD and SP to the βR is graphed. A chief limitation is noted that ultrasound testing is heavily dependent on the expertise of the operator, and because the reading of the outcome is subjective, precision may be hard to achieve. This review also clarifies and discusses the options used in solving the industrial engineering problem, with a comprehensive historical summary of the information available in the literature. Merging various NDE inspection techniques into the testing of objects is discussed. Eventually, it is hoped to find a suitable technique combined with ultrasonic inspection to deliver highly effective remote testing.

Effect of microscopic pore structures on ultrasonic velocity in tight sandstone with different fluid saturation

Microcosmic details of pore structure are the essential factors affecting the elastic properties of tight sandstone reservoirs,while the relationships in between are still incompletely clear due to the fact that quantitative or semi-quantitative experiments are hard to achieve.Here,three sets of tight sandstone samples from the Junggar Basin are selected elaborately based on casting thin sections,XRD detection,and petro-physical measurement,and each set is characterized by a single varied microcosmic factor(pore connectedness,pore type,and grain size)of the pore structure.An ultrasonic pulse transmission technique is conducted to study the response of elastic properties to the varied microcosmic details of pore structure in the situation of different pore fluid(gas,brine,and oil)saturation and confining pressure.Observations show samples with less connectedness,inter-granular dominant pores,and smaller grain size showed greater velocities in normal conditions.Vpis more sensitive to the variations of pore type,while Vsis more sensitive to the variations of grain size.Samples with better connectedness at fluid saturation(oil or brine)show greater sensitivity to the confining pressure than those with gas saturation with a growth rate of 6.9%-11.9%,and the sensitivity is more likely controlled by connectedness.The pore types(inter-granular or intra-granular)can be distinguished by the sensitivity of velocities to the variation of pore fluid at high confining pressure(>60 MPa).The samples with small grain sizes tend to be more sensitive to the variations of confining pressure.With this knowledge,we can semi-quantitatively distinguish the complex pore structures with different fluids by the variation of elastic properties,which can help improve the precision of seismic reservoir prediction for tight sandstone reservoirs.