Detection, characterization, and study of flaws in work with acoustic

Abstract

The work is scanned by acoustic energy from a focused-arc transducer and from an acoustic-lens transducer. An echo-ranging subassembly energizes the focused-arc transducer and processes the echo trains relfected from the lines or pencils in the work along which the acoustic energy is focused. A holographic echo-processing subassembly is connected to energize the acoustic-lens transducer and to process the echoes reflected from the work where the energy from the acoustic lens impinges. The echo-ranging subassembly and the holographic echo-processing subassembly are enabled alternately and the acoustic energy from the focused-arc transducer and from the acoustic-lens transducer impinge on, and is reflected by, each of a succession of elemental areas of the work. The outputs of the echo-ranging subassembly and of the holographic echo-processing subassembly are supplied to an elastic store which may include one or more shift registers. The elastic store stores a set of magnitudes corresponding to the components of each echo train resulting from the impingement on each elemental area of acoustic energy from the focused-arc transducer and to the echo or echoes resulting from the impingement at a predetermined depth in the work of acoustic energy from the acoustic-lens transducer. The content of the elastic store is transferred to a video disc, the intelligence for each strip or each line of the work which is scanned is recorded on a track of the disc. A cathode-ray tube display is produced from the intelligences stored in the disc for the trains of echo components reflected from each strip of the work and a hologram is produced of the intelligences stored in the disc for the trains of echo components reflected from each strip of the work and a hologram is produced of the intelligences stored on the disc for the echoes resulting from the acoustic energy derived from the acoustic-lens transducer.