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CORROSION INSPECTION AND MONITORING SYSTEM

  • US 20100312493A1
  • Filed: 04/29/2010
  • Published: 12/09/2010
  • Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2009
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. An apparatus for detection and monitoring of corrosion in a structure by direct measurement of material loss in the structure, comprising:

  • a microcontroller including memory;

    a function generator in communication with said microcontroller for generating a high-frequency tone burst excitation signal;

    a power amplifier connected to said function generator for conditioning the high-frequency tone burst excitation signal;

    an actuator connected to said power amplifier and in contact with said structure for imparting each said conditioned high-frequency tone burst excitation signal into said structure as a wave packet to generate a mechanical disturbance into the structure;

    a plurality of sensors mounted on said structure for sensing mechanical deformation in said structure due to said wave packet wave propagation and for converting said mechanical deformation into voltage feedback signals;

    an analog-to-digital converter connected between said plurality of sensors and said microcontroller for digitizing the feedback signals and transmitting the digitized signals to the microcontroller; and

    software stored in said microcontroller memory for initiating said function generator to generate said high-frequency tone burst excitation signal, to extract phase and magnitude information from the digitized feedback signals from said analog-to-digital converter, and for correlating said phase and magnitude information with corrosion damage in said structure.

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