A Non-Contact Ultrasonic Sensor for General Corrosion Inspection of Thin Plates

In power plants, there are structures made up of thin plates, such as air-conditioning ducts or thin-walled pipes, where corrosion can occur. In this study, we provide a solution to reduce inspection time of the thin plate corrosion measurement and enable monitoring, using a non-contact ultrasonic sensor. The sensor can measure the reduction in thickness of thin plates due to general corrosion without the need to remove or reinstall insulating material that is on the outside of the plate. The proposed sensor is based on the non-contact ultrasonic measurement technique which was originally proposed by Greve et al, further developed and patented by Zhong et al. at the University of Bristol, and commercialized by Inductosense Ltd. In order to ultrasonically measure the thin plate thickness, we use a method based on the group velocity of the guided waves. The proposed method was tested theoretically with numerical simulations and experimentally against our target conditions. The results of the numerical simulations and experiments confirm that the proposed method can be applied to thickness measurements of thin-plates in our target condition. Based on the feasibility test results, we developed a prototype sensor and measurement software. From the results of the performance evaluation tests, we have confirmed that the prototype sensor has sufficient capability to measure the thickness of the thin plates without the removal of the insulator. Even if the offset between the plate and the inspection probe is 100 mm, the prototype sensor still works well.