The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 24, 1995
Filed:
Oct. 26, 1992
Errol E Wallingford, Sydenham, CA;
Robert DeNale, Arnold, MD (US);
The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
A two probe time-of-flight system has a transmit probe emitting a diverging beam into a test material at a certain beam-center angle, and a receive probe with its main beam extending into the test material at that same angle, with the two probes being arranged symmetrical about a centerline normal to the test face. The transmit probe generates a pulse wherein a portion of the pulse reflects at the incident angle back to the receive probe, which detects the reflections and marks the reception time as a reference. A sampling unit captures subsequent echo energy returning from a region within the test material. The sampled energy above a given threshold is processed to identify the sample times relative to the marked reference time. The identified sample times are used to determine the depth that the echo energy originated from. Consecutive identified samples in the depth direction are used to detect the height of a flaw within the test material. By scanning the probes in an x-y pattern, the planar dimensions of the flaw are determined.