General Electric Company

Baker Hughes Holdings LLC

Norbert Ewald Steinhoff

Weiwei Zhang

Alexander Franz Freund

Markus Manfred Stahlberg

Daniel Koers

Frank Kahmann

An inspection system for determining the efficacy and veracity of a bond-line, comprising: a robotic arm assembly providing a gimbal mount for enabling linear and rotary translation about multiple axes; an ultrasonic transducer affixed to the gimbal mount of the robotic arm assembly and comprising a planar array of transducer elements, each transducer element capable of transmitting and receiving reflected ultrasonic energy indicative of changes in acoustic impedance within the bond-line. The reflected energy of each transducer element provides acquired bond-line data indicative of the efficacy of the bond-line while select transducer elements produce orientation data indicative of the orientation of the planar array relative to the contour of the bonded joint. The bond-line and orientation data are combined to determine whether the direction of the transmitted pulse should be altered to validate the bond-line data.

Automated ultrasonic inspection of adhesively-bonded joints and inspection method therefor

A device is disclosed that, in an illustrative embodiment, includes an input line, a main gain component, a first local gain component, and a second local gain component. The main gain component, the first local gain component, and the second local gain component each have a communicative connection with the input line. The main gain component is configured for applying a main gain to an ultrasonic wave signal received via the input line, thereby providing a main gain signal. The first local gain component is configured for applying a first local gain to a portion of the ultrasonic wave signal within a first signal gate, and thereby providing a first local gain signal. The second local gain component is configured for applying a second local gain to a portion of the ultrasonic wave signal within a second signal gate, and thereby providing a second local gain signal.

Ultrasonic scanning with local gain intervals

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Erftstadt, Germany

Norbert Ewald Steinhoff