DASEL announces the release of the new SITAU-MC portable multi-channel system, the ideal solution for field inspection with up to 32 conventional or TOFD transducers. Some of the target application for this system are:

· Tubes / rods inspection in production or service.

· Thick welding inspection with conventional UT and TOFD

· Long-range inspection of pipes and rods.

Main features:

· 16 MHz bandwidth, 40 MHz of sampling frequency and up to 80 dB gain.

· Advanced processing capabilities: EMI noise reduction, Data compression with no peak-loss.

Adding Conventional Ultrasound channels to Phased-Array equipments is a common practice of ultrasound equipment manufacturers. However, equipments in the market are limited to 4 or 8 channels, which can be not enough for most advanced applications.

DASEL pushes this kind of equipments a step further with the SITAU-MC solution, a powerful system that combines a 128 channel Phased-Array unit with 24 conventional ultrasound channels. Both sub-systems can work in parallel, increasing inspection speed and productivity.

A practical example for this kind of systems can be the inspection of tubes/rods during production, where conventional ultrasound and phased-array are required by normative. Another example is the inspection thick welding, where conventional UT, TOFD and PA are usually combined.

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Non destructive evaluation of windmill blades using ultrasound is a challenging task. Microstructure of fiberglass and resin composites (GFRP) introduces dispersive effects on ultrasound waves, which is seen as grain noise and produces high attenuation to ultrasonic signals.

In this work, results of the inspection of a thin GFRP layer (3mm) using phased-array technique are presented. The goal is to detect the presence of broken fibers in the material. A 5MHz array was used, along with a novel C-Scan processing technique, that allows to detect broken fibers with a resolution above 1 mm.

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Using epoxy adhesives to joint fiberglass composite (GFRP) parts is a common practice to build larger components. It is the case of windmill blades, where structural strips are bonded to the blade inner surface, both manufactured with GFRP. Structural resistance of the blade depends on these joints quality, and hence, non destructive evaluation is mandatory to guarantee component life.

Non destructive evaluation of GFRP using ultrasound is a challenging task. Microstructure of fiberglass and resin composites introduces dispersive effects on ultrasound waves, which is seen as grain noise and produces high attenuation to ultrasonic signals. The traditional approach to overcome these problems is using low frequency transducers (typically 500 kHz), at the expense of loosing resolution, and hence, the capability to detect small defects or to inspect low thickness components.

In this work, results from the inspection of a strip bonded joint of a windmill blade using phased-array are presented. It is demonstrated how this method provides high resolution images at the same time inspection time is greatly reduced.

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