Browsing by Author "Pierce, Stephen G."

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    Multi-layer ultrasonic imaging of as-built wire + arc additive manufactured components
    (Elsevier, 2021-10-13) Zimermann, Rastislav; Mohseni, Ehsan; Lines, David; Vithanage, Randika K. W.; MacLeod, Charles N.; Pierce, Stephen G.; Gachagan, Anthony; Javadi, Yashar; Williams, Stewart; Ding, Jialuo
    Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) of metal Additively Manufactured (AM) components is crucial for the identification of any potential defects. Ultrasonic testing is recognised for its volumetric imaging capability in metallic components and high defect sensitivity. However, conventional ultrasonic techniques suffer from challenges when deployed on components with curved and non-planar geometries, such as those often encountered in AM builds. The body of work introduces the concept of inspection of Wire+Arc Additive Manufacture (WAAM) components from their non-planar as-built surface, eliminating the requirement for post-manufacturing machining. In-situ or post-manufacturing inspection is enabled via an autonomously deployed conformable phased array roller-probe deploying Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT)-surface finding and multi-layer adaptive Total Focusing Method (TFM) algorithms, for fully focussed imaging of the as-built WAAM component. The concept of the imaging approach is demonstrated by inspection, through the as-built surface, of two titanium WAAM components, one containing reference bottom-drilled holes, and the other with intentionally introduced Lack of Fusion (LoF) defects. The TFM images of the WAAM components feature sufficient Signal-to-Noise Ratio to enable defect detection along with strong agreement against reference X-Ray CT data, confirming the competency of the approach for volumetric or layer-specific inspection of as-built WAAM components.
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    ItemOpen Access
    Ultrasonic phased array inspection of wire plus arc additive manufacture samples using conventional and total focusing method imaging approaches
    (British Institute of Non-destructive Testing, 2019-03-01) Javadi, Yashar; MacLeod, Charles N.; Pierce, Stephen G.; Gachagan, Anthony; Lines, David; Mineo, Carmelo; Ding, Jialuo; Williams, Stewart W.; Vasilev, Momchil; Mohseni, Ehsan; Su, Riliang
    In this study, three aluminium samples produced by wire + arc additive manufacture (WAAM) are inspected using ultrasonic phased array technology. Artificial defects are machined using a centre drill, ø 3 mm, and electrical discharge machining (EDM), ø 0.5-1 mm, in a cylindrical through-hole topology. The samples are first inspected using a singleelement wheel probe mounted on a KUKA robot in order to investigate the feasibility of using a conventional ultrasonic transducer approach. Unfortunately, the wheel probe is found to be unsuitable for scanning the WAAM specimens and ultrasonic phased arrays are employed next. The set-up includes 5 MHz and 10 MHz arrays (128 elements) in direct contact with the sample surface using both the conventional and total focusing method (TFM) imaging techniques. Using an FIToolbox (Diagnostic Sonar, UK) as the controller, a phased array aperture of 32 elements is used to perform a focused B-scan with a range of settings for the transmit focal depth. All of the reflectors (including those located near the WAAM top surface) are successfully detected with a combination of conventional phased array and TFM, using a range of settings and set-ups, including bottom surface inspection, application through a plexiglass wedge and variation of the scanning frequency.