Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation of welds in clad piping systems

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Many industrial piping systems, such as those used for off-shore oil & gas recovery, are vulnerable to attack via**from the corrosive fluids inside the pipe. Therefore, the pipes may have a protective inner layer or cladding**made from a non-isotropic material such as stainless steel or Inconel. To avoid the costly and environmentally**devastating effects of a pipe failure the weld seam linking two adjacent pipe sections together is ultrasonically**inspected after construction. In this project, we attempt to develop more accurate techniques for conducting**these inspections using two-dimensional ultrasonic arrays. By combining together the signals received at all the**array elements after reflection from weld defects, one can focus on the areas of interest and thereby get more**accurate information. However, such techniques are time consuming and require great amounts of computer**data storage and processing power. We will be developing inspection methods and signal processing**techniques to make the process more efficient while maintaining high accuracy.