California Institute of Technology

Patrick N Ostlund

Yoseph Bar-Cohen

Stewart Sherrit

Xiaoqi Bao

Mircea Badescu

Hyeong Jae Lee

Shyh-Shiuh Lih

Nobuyuki Takano

Steve Askins

A high temperature ultrasonic probe and a mounting fixture for attaching and aligning the probe to a steam pipe using blind alignment. The high temperature ultrasonic probe includes a piezoelectric transducer having a high temperature. The probe provides both transmitting and receiving functionality. The mounting fixture allows the high temperature ultrasonic probe to be accurately aligned to the bottom external surface of the steam pipe so that the presence of liquid water in the steam pipe can be monitored. The mounting fixture with a mounted high temperature ultrasonic probe are used to conduct health monitoring of steam pipes and to track the height of condensed water through the wall in real-time.

High temperature ultrasonic probe and pulse-echo probe mounting fixture for testing and blind alignment on steam pipes

The design of the free-mass in an ultrasonic driller/corer (USDC) has been refined in order to improve the performance and operational reliability of the system. In one embodiment, the improvements in performance and operational reliability include decreasing the impact surface area of the free-mass to increase the transfer of impact energy from the piezoelectric transducer and reductions in the likelihood that the system will jam.

Free-mass and interface configurations of hammering mechanisms

Growing community of inventors

Pomona, CA, United States of America

Patrick N Ostlund