Ultrasonic Guided-Wave Mode Identification in Pipe by Using Air-Coupled Transducer and Time-Frequency Analysis

For efficient NDE of pipes, essential components of power plant facilities, ultrasonic guided waves were generated and received applying an air-coupled transducer and comb one as non-contact technology. Mode generation and selection were predicted based on theoretical dispersive curve and the element space of a comb transducer. In addition, a receiving angle of the air-coupled transducer was determined to acquire the predicted modes by theoretical phase velocity of each mode. Theoretical dispersive curve was compared with the results of the time-frequency spectroscopes based on the wavelet transform and 2D-FFT to identify the characteristics of the received mode. The received modes show a good agreement with the predicted ones.