Sumitomo Metal Industries, Inc.

Hiroyuki Okubo

Masaki Yamano

Takumi Horikiri

Provided are an ultrasonic testing method and an ultrasonic testing apparatus capable of accurately detecting flaws present in a weld zone of a test object, such as a welded pipe, regardless of the position of the flaws. An ultrasonic testing apparatusincludes an ultrasonic probewhich is provided with n (n&#x2267;2) transducersarranged along a direction orthogonal to the weld line of a weld zone Pof a test object P and is arranged so as to face the weld zone, and transmission/reception control meanswhich selects m (n&#x3e;m&#x2267;1) transducers from the n transducers, causes the selected transducers to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves to and from the weld zone, and switches the selected transducers one after another. The transmission/reception control means switches the selected transducers one after another so that the range of an effective beam width of each of the selected transducers that have been switched for a flaw to be detected has an overlapping portion, and in the transmission/reception control means, the flaw detection sensitivity is adjusted beforehand for each of the selected transducers so that maximum echo intensities from a flaw to be detected, which are each received by each of the selected transducers that have been switched, become substantially equal to each other.

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Osaka, Japan

Hiroyuki Okubo