Olympus Ndt

Olympus Scientific Solutions Americas Corp.

Andrew Thomas

Steven Besser

Michael Drummy

Jason Toomey

Marc Dulac

Pierre Langlois

Ehab Ghabour

Paul Joseph DeAngelo

Daniel Stephen Kass

Erich Henjes

Denys Laquerre

David Larochelle

Examples of the present subject matter provide techniques for measuring thicknesses of materials using one or more acquisition cycles. The data from the one or more acquisition cycles may be amplified using a specified gain across the signal response, converted to a digital signal, and stored in a memory. The digital signal may be retrieved from memory, and signal processing techniques using one or more time-variable threshold(s) may be used to calculate one or more thickness(es) of the testing object.

Ultrasonic testing with single shot processing

A rotary bolt hole eddy current inspection scanner using a differential eddy current probe, the circuitry of the scanner is embodied with a filtering circuit with three filters: FIR (Finite Impulse Response), a low pass filter, and a phase control filter (by means of a Hilbert transform). The result from a scan of a bolt hole is an output signal on an impedance plane exhibiting a 'backwards 6' shape of stable size when the scanner changes its rotating rate significantly.

Circuit and method of providing a stable display for eddy current instruments

A pulse generation circuit and method includes using digital signals to trigger a first and second varying analog signals and detecting when they reach one or more reference levels. In response to the first and second varying analog signals reaching one or more reference levels, a first and a second digital control signals are produced and provided as input to a pulser producing a voltage excitation pulse having a width and timing defined by the first and second digital control signals.

Apparatus for and a method of improved timing control for non-destructive testing and inspection

Disclosed is a method and an apparatus for removing circling drifts on the display of the measured eddy current or other continuous waves. The circling dot which is supposed to be a static dot can obscure information required by the operator to judge if a small defect is present. Embodiments of presently disclosed harmonic rejection filters are tunable and employed to effectively abate or eliminate signals with frequencies that are multiples of operating frequencies, resulting in the removal of the circling effects on the display.

Method and circuitry for removing circling drifts in NDT/NDI measurement display

Disclosed is a Hall Effect instrument with the capability of compensating for temperature drift consistently, accurately and in real time of operation. The instrument embodies a four-point ohmmeter circuit measuring Hall Effect sensor resistance and tracking the effect of temperature on the Hall Effect sensor. The instrument takes into account a relationship between the temperature and a temperature compensation index on a per probe basis, which has exhibited a deterministic difference observed by the present inventor.

Hall effect measurement instrument with temperature compensation

Disclosed are a method of and an apparatus devising a packet based DDS circuitry for performing packet based a direct digital synthesizing (DDS) function within an electronic testing instrument. The circuitry comprising a DDS logic circuit configured to execute direct digital syntheses on a plurality of consecutive packets of sine-like waves, each packet having a length of a period precisely chosen such that the sine wave at the end of one packet matches up with the sine wave at the start of the immediate subsequent packet. Also disclosed is an eddy current testing circuitry using multiple outputs of the single packet based DDS, one of the output is used in a circuit producing reference signals approximating the response signals. With the usage of the packet based DDS, the reference signal can be highly effective in nulling the unchanging portion of the response signals.

Packet based DDS minimizing mathematical and DAC noise

Disclosed is a Hall Effect instrument with the capability of compensating for temperature drift consistently, accurately and in real time of operation. The instrument embodies a four-point ohm meter circuit measuring Hall Effect sensor resistance and tracking the effect of temperature on the Hall Effect sensor. The instrument takes into account a relationship between the temperature and a temperature compensation index on a per probe basis, which has exhibited a deterministic difference observed by the present inventor.

Disclosed is an eddy current non-destructive inspection device which includes an eddy current probe with a probe conductor resistance dynamically changing due to operation conditions, such as temperature. The device further includes a signal generating circuit generating an inspection frequency signal and a low frequency signal. Sensed inspection frequency signals are processed to produce resulting signals with possible drift. A low frequency processing circuit includes a resistance calculator producing a substantially true value of the dynamic probe resistance, based on which compensation operations are configured to correct the drifted resulting signals and produce corrected resulting signals.

Circuitry for and a method of compensating drift in resistance in eddy current probes

Disclosed are a method and an NDT/NDI inspection device deploying digital circuitry to conduct detection and compensation of phase and amplitude shift in responding signals. A digital waveform generator, such as a direct digital synthesizer (DDS) is used to generate a digital sine-wave of a specific frequency and amplitude, mimicking the pulser frequency and amplitude. The sine-wave is converted to analog signal through a DAC and transmitted to the transducer. The received analog sine-wave from the transducer is converted back to a digital signal through an ADC. The transmitted and received digital signals are then compared for phase and amplitude differences. A null circuit involving another waveform generating component is employed to compensate the detected phase and amplitude differences. As a result the phase and amplitude differences are effectively eliminated before being further processed and analyzed for defects information.

Circuitry for measuring and compensating phase and amplitude differences in NDT/NDI operation

A method and apparatus for effecting ultrasonic flaw detection of an object processes an echo signal received from the object being tested in at least three signal channels, wherein the echo signal is scaled to different degrees along each channel to increase and extend the dynamic range of an associated A/D converter system, in a manner which dispenses with the need for using numerous analog high pass and low pass filters and a variable gain amplifier. This reduces complexity and avoids performance limitations. The digital to analog converters sample the differently scaled input signal and a selection circuit selects the output of the digital output obtained from that analog to digital converter which has the highest gain, but which has not overflowed. The digital outputs are seamlessly merged to produce an output that can be displayed as a scan display which shows the location of faults.

Extended overflow indication for high dynamic range ultrasonic fault detection systems

A peak visualization enhancement system for use with a non-destructive inspection (NDI) instrument using a digital display which replicates the haloing effect of analog cathode ray tube (CRT) displays. A peak detection algorithm is provided which intelligently selects the peak values from within the uncompressed digitized waveform while taking measures to prevent noise spikes and the like from being identified as valid waveform peaks. The digital display then highlights the identified peaks, or a subset of the identified peaks, on the compressed waveform display. In this way the effect of bright spots (halos) about the zero slope points on a waveform displayed on an analog CRT is replicated in a digitally compressed waveform display.

Peak visualization enhancement display system for use with a compressed waveform display on a non-destructive inspection instrument

An apparatus for performing ultrasonic inspection of an object, during one measurement on the object, triggers a sequence of excitations of the probe system and receives a sequence of substantially identical echo signals reflected from the object, and further scales each echo signal to different degrees to increase and extend the dynamic range of the echo signals. An A/D converter is then used to digitize the scaled signal sequentially in a manner which dispenses the need for using numerous A/D converters and the associated filters. The digitized signal samples are then combined to produce a single digital output in a manner that is not over-flowed and with desirable resolution.

Sequentially fired high dynamic range NDT/NDI inspection device

An apparatus for performing ultrasonic inspection of an object, during one measurement on the object, triggers a sequence of excitations of the probe system and receives a sequence of substantially identical echo signals reflected from the object, and further scales each echo signal to different degrees to increase and extend the dynamic range of the echo signals. An A/D converter is then used to digitize the scaled signal sequentially in a manner which dispenses the need for using numerous A/D converters and the associated filters. The digitized signal samples are then combined to produce a single digital output in a manner that is not over-flowed and with desirable resolution. A sequence of successive acquisitions of the scaled signal with the highest sensitivity are averaged to reduce system noise.

Growing community of inventors

Westford, MA, United States of America

Andrew Thomas