Non-invasive ultrasonic inspection of sludge accumulation in a pipe.

Sludge accumulated inside a fluid-flowing pipe used in a chemical or semiconductor processing factory should be periodically removed to avoid flow blockage that increases undesirable pressure inside the pipe. Accordingly, it is common practice to periodically dismantle a pipe system, clean up the accumulate sludge, and reassemble. Therefore, an accurate estimation of sludge accumulation in the pipe is important to minimize the halting time of a chemical process using the system. Considering the lack of a practically efficient, non-invasive method to estimate the severity of sludge accumulation without interrupting the on-going chemical process, we propose an ultrasonic, non-invasive, real-time inspection method using a pair of ultrasonic wedge transducers installed circumferentially on the outer wall of a pipe at the same axial coordinate. To detect lowly accumulated sludge, an ultrasonic wave path from a transmitting transducer via a test pipe with accumulated sludge to a receiving transducer is carefully designed. The severity of sludge accumulation can then be determined by the amplitude of the longitudinal wave picked up by another transducer installed on the other side of the wall. We performed a series of experiments with steel and PVC pipes that are partially filled with water and sludge of different heights. The experimental results confirmed the effectiveness and practical viability of the proposed inspection method.

Vibration characteristics of an ultrasonic transducer of two piezoelectric discs.

This paper considers the influence of the different thickness of the piezoelectric discs used in assembly of an ultrasonic sandwich transducer. The transducer consists of two piezoelectric discs with different thickness between 0 and 2.0mm and with same diameter 28mm. Its vibration characteristics of the radial and axial motions were investigated theoretically and experimentally in axisymmetric vibration modes. Theoretically, the differential equations of piezoelectric motions were solved to produce characteristic equations that provided natural frequencies and mode shapes. The range of the fundamental frequency of radial in-plane mode is 80-360kHz and that of the axial out-of-plane mode is 600-1200kHz. Experimentally, the natural frequencies and the radial in-plane motion were measured using an impedance analyzer and an in-plane laser interferometer, respectively. The results of the theoretical analysis were compared with those of a finite-element analysis and experiments, and the theoretical analysis was verified on the basis of this comparison. It was concluded that the natural frequencies of the radial modes of the transducer were not affected by the stack and thickness of piezoelectric discs; however, those of the thickness modes were affected by the stack and thickness of the piezoelectric discs.