Abstract
Welding plays an important role in our modern world, with safety critical welds of thin sheet metals being widely used in airplane fuselages, boilers and nuclear cannisters among others. A potential failure in such welds could prove to be catastrophic, hence the need for thorough inspection and testing. With the ever-increasing automation of welding operations, the manually deployed Non-destructive Evaluation (NDE) has become a major bottleneck in the supply chain. This paper presents a weld inspection approach deployed at the point of manufacture using air-coupled ultrasonic transducers and guided Lamb waves. 3mm thick mild steel plates are butt welded together using Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) while a continuous inspection is performed on a section of the weld seam. Trials with varying levels of welding power and amplitude sizing of the received Lamb waves have revealed a correlation between signal amplitude and the penetration and quality of the welded joints. Advantages of the outlined method include higher production rates, reduced levels of scrap and higher production quality in regards to thin metal sheet welded components.
How to Cite:
Vasilev, M. ., MacLeod, C. ., Galbraith, W. ., Pierce, G. . & Gachagan, A. ., (2019) “In-process ultrasonic inspection of thin mild steel plate GMAW butt welds using non-contact guided waves”, Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation .
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