Ultrasound sensor for non-destructive control of metallurgical products
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Accused Products
Abstract
An installation for non-destructive control for a metal tube in which an ultrasound sensor includes transducer elements that can be excited each at selected times. A downstream circuit for processing the sensed signals analyzes a global response of the tube at ultrasonic excitation. The transducer elements are only excited to produce a single emission and the downstream circuit recovers the samples of the sensed signals each through a transducer element, to associate therewith successive times respectively offset, to calculate plural global responses of the tube at a single emission, by modifying the shifts between the successive times.
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Citations
46 Claims
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1-23. -23. (canceled)
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24. An installation for non-destructive control of metallurgical products, comprising:
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an ultrasound sensor device comprising a set of selectively accessible ultrasound transducer elements;
an upstream circuit configured to selectively excite the transducer elements at selected instants;
a downstream circuit configured to collect signals sensed on return by the transducer elements; and
a processing component configured to analyze the signals sensed, as a global response of a metallurgical product to ultrasound excitation;
wherein the upstream circuit is configured to operate by bursts, which are associated with a same temporal law of excitation of the transducer elements, wherein the downstream circuit comprises a memory and is configured to store samples of the signals sensed by each transducer element, in correspondence with each burst, to a selected temporal depth, wherein the processing component is configured to cooperate with the memory in order;
for each burst, to read and add up repetitively groups of samples corresponding to different transducer elements, and also to instants staggered from one element to another, according to a selected temporal processing law, peculiar to each repetition, which makes it possible to calculate for each burst a plurality of reconstituted responses, each of which would correspond to a deflection on emission, and to analyze the global response constituted by the reconstituted responses as a whole.
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25. An installation according to claim 24, wherein the ultrasound transducer elements have a divergence at least equal to a maximum angle of deflection, for the reconstituted responses.
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26. An installation according to claim 25, wherein the downstream circuit comprises a digitalization unit for the signals sensed by each of the transducer elements of the sensor device.
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27. An installation according to claim 26, wherein the memory is arranged to cooperate with the digitalization unit with a view to storing, as a function of successive instants, and active transducer elements, the samples of the signals sensed by each transducer element.
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28. An installation according to claim 27, wherein the processing component comprises means for defining distributions of delays to be applied, respectively, to the sensed signals, to obtain, for each distribution, a reconstituted response that would correspond to a burst according to a selected beam deflection.
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29. An installation according to claim 27, wherein the processing component comprises means for enabling the processing component to gain access to the memory as a function of times associated with the samples, for each transducer element.
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30. An installation according to claim 24, wherein the upstream circuit comprises a temporal excitation law that corresponds to an excitation of the transducer elements, substantially without a phase shift between them.
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31. An installation according to claim 24, wherein the upstream circuit comprises a temporal excitation law that corresponds to an excitation of the transducer elements with, between them, phase shifts defining a beam deflected on emission, and wherein, in view of the temporal excitation law, the processing component is further configured to define distributions of delays to be applied to the sensed signals, taking into account the phase shifts between transducer elements on excitation, so that the reconstituted responses each correspond to a deflection centered around an angle of physical deflection of the beam on emission.
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32. An installation according to claim 24, wherein each group of samples added up corresponds to a selected sub-set of transducer elements, as a virtual sensor.
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33. An installation according to claim 32, wherein the processing component is further configured to calculate plural elemental reconstituted responses of a product to a same burst under a same deflection, for different sub-sets of the virtual sensor.
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34. An installation according to claim 33, wherein the processing component is further configured to calculate the reconstituted response in a form of a function of the elemental reconstituted responses for the same deflection and for different sub-sets of the virtual sensor.
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35. An installation according to claim 34, wherein the reconstituted response of the product to the burst under a deflection is the elemental response that has a maximum peak amplitude.
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36. An installation according to claim 32, wherein the processing component is configured to calculate reconstituted responses for different deflections, with different sub-sets of the sensor device.
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37. An installation according to claim 32, wherein the sub-sets of the sensor device, for calculating a reconstituted response of the product to the burst under a deflection, comprise substantially a same number (Nv) of transducer elements.
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38. An installation according to claim 37, wherein the sub-sets of the sensor device are selected from the sensor device while excluding at each end a guard band, of which a number of transducer elements is approximately half a number of transducer elements of a sub-set.
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39. An installation according to claim 37, wherein two consecutive subsets are derived from one another by a translation by an imbrication pitch.
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40. An installation according to claim 39, wherein two consecutive sub-sets comprise common elements.
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41. An installation according to claim 39, wherein the selected number of sub-sets of the sensor device for calculating a reconstituted response under a deflection corresponds substantially to a maximum number of possible sub-sets for the selected imbrication pitch and for a number Nv of elements selected from (NT-NV) elements.
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42. An installation according to claim 24, for control of metallurgical products of steel tube type, further comprising:
means for actuating the steel tubes in accordance with a helical movement about an axis of the steel tubes, wherein the ultrasound sensor device is constructed in a form of a linear bar of transducer elements disposed substantially parallel with the axis of the steel tubes and arranged such that the ultrasound beam on emission has a selected deflection in a cross-sectional plane of the steel tubes, which enables oblique defects to be detected.
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43. An installation according to claim 24, for control of metallurgical products of steel tube type, further comprising:
means for actuating the steel tubes in accordance with a rectilinear movement along their axis, wherein the ultrasound sensor device is constructed in a form of a linear bar of transducer elements disposed substantially parallel with the axis of the steel tubes and arranged such that the ultrasound beam on emission has a selected deflection in a cross-sectional plane of the steel tubes, the bar being set in rotation about the steel tubes, which enables oblique defects to be detected.
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44. An installation according to claim 24, for control of metallurgical products of steel tube type, further comprising:
means for actuating the steel tubes in accordance with a rectilinear movement along their axis, and wherein the ultrasound sensor device is constructed in a form of a bar of transducer elements, substantially in a shape of an arc of a circle, arranged around the steel tubes, which enables longitudinal defects to be detected.
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45. An installation according to claim 24, further comprising:
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means for actuating tubes in accordance with a rectilinear movement along their axis, wherein the ultrasound sensor device comprises a network of transducer elements arranged substantially in accordance with a cylindrical surface coaxial with the tubes, in plural rows of elements, which rows are parallel with one another and with the axis of the tubes, and wherein the downstream circuit and the processing component are configured to determine distributions of delays on the signals sensed on return by the transducer elements of a sub-set or of the whole of the network, which enables oblique defects to be detected.
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46. An installation according to claim 24, wherein the processing component is incorporated in the downstream circuit.
Specification