Detachable Active Array HeHi

ASNT Fall Conference and Quality Testing Show 2007 [Las Vegas, NV, November 2007]: pp 285-297.
Copyright 2007, 2011,

American Society for Nondestructive Testing, Columbus, OH.
Detachable Active Array Head (DAAH):

A Proposed Solution to Help the Proliferation of Phased Array Manual UT
Franois Mainguy
4975 rue Rideau, Suite 140
Qubec City, Qubec, G2E 5H5 Canada
+1 (418) 683-6222 x105; fax +1 (418) 683-7032; e-mail fmainguy@harfangicro.com
ABSTRACT
As the price of portable phased array instrumentation drops, the current phased array probe technology doesnt allow for a
major cost reduction, to a point where the proliferation of phased array for manual UT may be limited or impossible. The
current manufacturing process is presented to better understand where the high costs come from. A Detachable Active Array
Head (DAAH) technology is proposed to solve many problems related to manual phased array UT, but also to
semi-automated and automated UT. Results show that the technology has a great potential to become the long-awaited
solution for phased array massive adoption.
INTRODUCTION
Since the early 1990s, the interest in phased array technology and equipment increased in the NDT community. Though the
price of the instruments has constantly decreased in the past years, the price of phased array probes hasnt followed the same
price trend. The cost of good transducers today is approximately 20% of the instrument price (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Evolution of the probe-to-instrument price ratio (rough estimates).

Both the price and delivery time have been causing problems to the industry, which has limited the proliferation of phased
array technology. The major issue is that most potential users will invest in phased array once they have had the proof their
application can be solved. Of course, one or several probes are needed for the proof. On a second order, the actual owners of
phased array instrumentation are slowed down in the process of resolving new applications because it takes a long time for
them to acquire new probes.
Amongst the current limitations to the proliferation of manual phased array inspection, probe supply is now the most critical
one. With the cost of portable instruments finally decreasing, its now becoming a serious subject the industry should resolve.
At the root of the problem is the array technology itself which is much more complicated and expensive than the
mono-transducer technology.
Another problem is the context in which phased array has been evolving in for the last 15 years. For the entire 1990s it
remained a very expensive technology that most NDT departments couldnt afford. In most cases, the lucky ones had
enough money for phased array equipment within a strategic technology surveillance program or research and development
funding. Quite naturally, those programs are driven by researchers and top-managers, who are often removed from daily
pragmatic considerations. Still, the latter have enjoyed the benefits of working with phased array technology because of its
power to resolve applications. Due to the fact they had plenty of budget, only few compromises were made in the probe
design. In the past 15 years, we have seen array probe designs that are no less than exotic: rho-theta probes, segmented
annular arrays, flexible probes, Fresnel arrays, and much more. They have been reported in numerous papers and conferences.
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ASNT Fall Conference and Quality Testing Show 2007 [Las Vegas, NV, November 2007]: pp 285-297. Copyright 2007, 2011,
Despite a valid theoretical justification and very exciting conference presentations, their geometry and beamforming
capabilities dont necessarily appear simple. Additionally when you start to include the odd example of phased array
terminology like focal law and beamforming, the recipe is perfect to make one think nice, but not for me.
Theres been of course a great deal of applications solved with simple linear 1D arrays, most of them providing a great benefit
when compared to other UT or NDT techniques. But they also suffered from the same science fiction aura as perceived
by most NDT practitioners worldwide. NDT field practitioners are, to a large extent, down-to-earth, time-pressurized
individuals who dont necessarily value new technology when results are not readily available. They have limited spare time
for designing and qualifying array search units and they often lack experience to write procedures based on phased array
apparatus. It is also a sad truth that NDT, at least in North America, is struggling with lack of qualified personnel and very
tight budgets, therefore the natural reaction towards phased array is Well, looks pretty sleek, but I dont have much time or
money to explore this further. Plus Im not even sure I want to pay so much money for a single probe!
Without a doubt, it is essential to convince manual UT operators that phased array is an excellent technology, but
manufacturers need to speak their language and eliminate as many barriers as possible.
In average, the mono-channel flaw detectors sell from 7,000 to 14,000 USD, while mono-transducers sell from 200 to 500
USD. The transducer-to-instrument ratio is roughly 3%. The current ratio for manual phased array is about 15 to 25%. An
array transducer is currently about 10 times more expensive than a mono-transducer and this is not acceptable to most users.
It is true that a single phased array probe can replace a few mono-transducers, but most customers have a psychological
barrier with such expensive probes.
Furthermore, there are 5000 to 7000 manual flaw detectors sold each year, worldwide (excluding China). Phased array sales
are grabbing only a minor fraction of this market. Immense marketing efforts were made around the systems themselves,
promoting hardware specifications and software features. There are now about 4 proactive competitors in portable phased
array and about 10 in semi-automatic or automated phased array. As the market evolves, more and more competitors
compete, and the marketing will increasingly become more focussed on specifications and price. This is the natural evolution
of a market when in transition into a stage of maturity.
But is the market ready for maturity? It is strongly believed that the market cant wait any longer to have affordable and
standard probes [1].
This paper will first summarize what phased array is all about. Then it will discuss the technical difficulties of array
manufacturing and the different cost issues. It will also present the current typical workflow for solving applications and the
impracticality of it. Lastly, it will propose a new workflow based on a new probe technology, for which results are provided.
PHASED ARRAY UT
Phased Array Beamforming
Over the past years, many papers have presented the underlying principles of phased array technology. Following is a quick
overview.
A piezoelectric crystal is split into many small elements, each individually driven by
a pulser-receiver circuitry. On transmission, elements are excited with a
high-voltage pulse, but at different moments (different phases). The phase pattern
adjusts the relative propagation of wavefronts. It is creating a transmit beam that is
just like any mono-transducer beam from a catalogue probe. The beam has a focal
spot, a beam width, a depth-of-field, a divergence, and of course an angle (Figure 2).
The electronic activation and phasing of elements can quickly change the position,
the angle and the focus of the beam, which are the most attractive advantages of
phased array technology.
On reception, a synthetic beam is created by the use of programmable delay lines on
each channel (N in Figure 2) and a summation. Sometimes, channel deactivation and
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Figure 2: A phased array beam

is just like any other beam, with
same definition of beam width
and depth-of-field.
apodization (N in Figure 3) are used to weigh the contribution of elements from extremities. The desired effect is to reduce
side-lobes and extend the depth-of-field, while enlarging the beam width.
When reflecting on material discontinuities, the backpropagating echoes
are collected by all elements and the parallel delay lines act like a spatial
filter. It means that echoes coming from a specific location - the focus point
- will emerge at the same time at the end of the delay lines thus maximizing
the sum amplitude. Off-focus echoes will be out of phase and will produce
a weak summation, barely distinguishable from the noise. This process is
known as delay-and-sum beamforming to which a spatial filter rejection ratio
can be associated. As an example, a linear array probe can lead to about 60
dB rejection ratio in the lateral vicinity of the focal spot, which can provide
Figure 3: Delay-and-sum beamforming.
very sharp focusing. It is good to recall that phased array beamforming can
only carve the focusing within the near field of the overall array aperture. In the farther range, only deflection remains
controllable. At the time of writing this paper, the available portable phased array instruments on the market feature a delayand-sum beamformer ranging from 16 to 32 active channels, with a multiplexing stage to address 64 or 128 elements.
Imaging Capabilities
Phased array can provide two real-time images, both based on several A-scans that are generated sequentially by the
beamformer. If the beamformer is programmed to sweep the beam angles (i.e. 35 to 70 degrees in shear waves), a sectorial
scan image will be displayed on screen (Figure 4).
This image is also known as S-scan and its well known from the medical industry. However, if the beamformer is
programmed to move the beam linearly at a constant angle (i.e. 30 degrees in longitudinal wave), a parallelogram image will
be displayed on screen. This image is known as L-scan for Linear scanning in opposition to sectorial scanning, and its also
very much used in medical and veterinary applications. Some NDT manufacturers refer to the latter as E-scan for electronic
scan, but it leaves open a debate as to what is performed electronically: phasing or activation?
Most portable phased array instruments are able to produce more than one real-time image, a feature known as multiscan.
In this case, the beamformer is able to manage multiple hundreds if not thousands of beam parameters, also known as focal
laws.
Both S- and L-scans present color-encoded A-scan amplitudes that are juxtaposed (Figure 4). It must always be noted that
each displayed A-scan line is in fact the integration of the energy collected from the acoustic sensitivity field. Therefore is
most likely to include echoes coming from reflectors not on the nominal beam orientation, mainly because of beam width and
potential side effects (i.e. side lobes, mode conversions, etc.) [2].
Figure 4: Sequential beams are generated and produce A-scans.

A-scans are collected, color-coded, and juxtaposed to generate a
sectorial scan image.
It should also be pointed that both on S-scan and L-scan images, the phased array system can extract and display a particular
A-scan corresponding to a specific beam. From the latter conventional UT views can be generated like B-scan, D-scan,
C-scan, strip charts, plus projected views such as top, side, and end [3]. In fact, most commercial systems will allow many
A-scans to be extracted at once.
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Imaging Approaches
Phased array leads to three different approaches for scanning a weldment volume. The first method is to use a shear wave
S-scan imaging. The second is shear and/or longitudinal wave L-scan imaging. The third is zone-discrimination using D-scan
imaging and/or strip charts, as proposed by ASTM E-1961 for automated ultrasonic testing of girth welds [4]. The latter uses
phased array to generate multiple discrete beams that will impact the weld bevel areas using a pulse-echo or a pitch-and-catch
method. This is using phased array without its full imaging capabilities of continuous sweeping, it also requires a constant
and precise positioning of the probe away from the weld. For those reasons, this method is not considered manual per se and
it falls outside the scope of this paper.
Most, if not all, phased array techniques refer to weld length axis as the scan or D-scan axis. The distance from the weld is
referred to the offset, or surface distance, or the B-scan axis (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Definition of D-scan weld length axis (dotted arrow)

and L-scan/S-scan surface distance axis (plain arrow).
The search unit is moved manually in different patterns, depending on the sound coverage of the imaging, as well as the
related probability of detection (PoD) [5]. Of course, both sides of a weldment should be scanned. For thin components using
S-scan, a single line pass could be enough, like the dotted line on Figure 5. For thicker components, most will use multiple
line passes, away from the weld [6], or use a raster scan technique, as with a mono-transducer. Of course, the greatest
advantage of manual imaging is the fact the operators dexterity is not as crucial to see the flaws, and therefore the scanning
speed is higher.
Common Errors
It is very common to see arrays that are oversized for the need of the application. The first consequence is an unstable
couplant layer. This can sometimes be solved using forced couplant irrigation. The other consequence is the use of too many
elements to perform sector scanning. The number of active elements define the active aperture and therefore the beam width
and depth-of-field. It is very common to see arrays with 2 or 3 times the active surface than what would have been used as a
mono-transducer to solve the application. The result is over-focusing with a very short depth-of-field, turning into blindness
in most of the depth of interest. This extremely sharp focusing is sometimes nice, and it also shows clearly an advantage of
phased array. But rarely it is desirable in the context of manual UT like weld inspection. Keeping the number of elements
to the minimum will keep the cost reasonable. The last consequence is that a bigger probe will inevitably position the index
points away from the weld, therefore the region of interest couldnt be inspected with the direct incidence of steep angles.
Second leg will have to be used.
Another common mistake is to count on circular geometries to solve applications, like rho-theta and segmented annular
arrays. It is perhaps the best geometries to do beamforming with because the symmetry of revolution will provide nice
acoustic beams in 3D, without edge effects. It is the very reason why mono-transducers are often circular. But to manufacture
separate disk elements or a circular array geometry is a lot more difficult and expensive than fabricating rectangular ones.
Since cost is always an issue for manual UT, those geometries shall be considered for special, well funded projects only, at
least for now due to the state-of-the-art. The next section explains the array manufacturing process.
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ARRAY MANUFACTURING
Review
The vast majority of the market is currently for 1D linear arrays between 1 and 10 MHz. The pitches are generally higher
than 300 m and the kerf (inter-element spacing) is normally in the range of 50 m. Most probes manufactured so far feature
less than 128 active elements. EPRI and a few other players have been successfully using 1.5D (i.e. 8 x 4) or 2D arrays,
showing the clear advantage of exploiting the second dimension for skewing the beams [7]. Despite the superiority of results
and the reusability of matrix probes for other applications, their cost and high-channel count have made most people reluctant
to follow this option.
Cost
Probes are still expensive and take a long time to manufacture. As an example, a 32-element probe at 5 MHz with 65%
relative bandwidth is approximately 4000 to 5000 USD and 5 weeks delivery under normal times, in North America. The
retail price is determined by the following cost implications:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Connector,
Multi-coaxial cable length,
Man-hours for assembly of cable and connector,
CAD time and machining of the probe frame,
Material processing,
Quality-assurance measurements and report,
Distribution fees,
Profit.
The connector (1), the cable (2), the machining (4) and the material processing (5) have a cost that is difficult to decrease
other than by high quantity production. The quality-assurance process varies a lot from one manufacturer to another. When
performed manually, it can be a lengthy process and therefore it will impact the pricing negatively. The following lines
describe the major steps of array manufacturing, without going into detail.
Material Processing
1-3 piezocomposite is the most popular material used to design high-performance ultrasound arrays with. Its been used for
almost 25 years in medical arrays and for about 15 years in NDT.
A cylindrical bar is made of piezo-ceramic powder like PZT5H (lead zirconate titanate). A diamond saw is used to cut very
thin slices of the bar. The thickness of the slice is usually half the wavelength of the desired central frequency, including a
correction factor.
In most cases, the slice is diced into miniature rectangular pillars using a diamond saw with orthogonal passes (Figure 6).
The size and spacing of the pillars are such that an integer number of pillars, used in cluster, will become an element of the
array. It should be said that this technique called subdicing is used to maximize compression wave generation while reducing
other wave modes that are incombant to the array performance. A polymer will be poured in to flood the inter-pillar spacing.
Various polymers can be used like urethane. The acoustic properties of the piezocomposite
can be adjusted by setting the volume fraction of the polymer (Figure 7). Parametric finite
element simulations with tools like PZFlex can prove to be very practical to avoid trial and
error [8]. This whole process is known as the dam-and-fill technique [9].
The processed slice is then polished on a lapping or grinding machine until the exceeding
polymer is removed, until a very precise thickness and surface finish are obtained. The
process requires a very high parallelism in order to ensure the same thickness and therefore
frequency of resonance.
The next step is to perform metallization of the slice surfaces. The evaporation or sputtering
Figure 6: The sub-dicing
process will deposit a thin layer of gold that will act as an electrode. Gold will be deposited
process improves the
in the sub-diced channels, therefore causing a short-circuit of all elements. A very precise
electro-acoustic performance.
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laser-vaporizing process is normally used to isolate the individual elements of

the array. The slice is then machined to create one or many probe apertures. The
actual machined area will be larger to include dead elements on the perimeter to
avoid aperture side effects.
Impedance Matching
The next step is to add acoustic matching. The inner impedance of the
piezocomposite is in the range of 15-20 MRayls while the impedance of typical
Rexolite wedges is in the 2.5 MRayls range. One or two quarter-wavelength
(/4) layers should be added to help the acoustic energy transfer into the wedge
material, to create a smooth transition to the ten-fold impedance mismatch. The
matching layer(s) play a crucial role in determining the resonance of the elements
(frequency and damping) [10].
Figure 7: A polymer is filling the

inter-pillar spacing. Thats where the
composite word comes from.
The aperture is then cleaned and put into a production gig to avoid damaging the
thin piezocomposite substrate in the numerous subsequent steps. The last step of
material processing is to pole the substrate. A high DC voltage is used to create a
high-intensity electric field. The piezoelectric dipoles will be aligned permanently in the axis of electric field, perpendicular
to the electrodes.
Interconnect
The next step is to electrically connect the electrodes. For high-end processes, a flex circuit will be used to link the electrodes
to one or many interconnect printed circuit boards (PCB), on which individual micro-coaxial wires will be soldered. The
micro-coaxial wires will have a gauge typically between 36 to 42 AWG, which is extremely small and requiring a protective
epoxy poting.
At the other end, the micro-coaxial wires are soldered to another set of interconnect PCBs that will link to the multi-pin
connector which will mate to the ultrasound instrument. As soon as some connectivity is available, a capacitance check is
performed on the entire array of elements in order to track for bugs such as short-circuits or high cross-talk. The consistency
of results along the array shall be observed at this point. The critical measurements are element sensitivity, central frequency
and bandwidth. Defective elements may imply to abandon further array processing.
At this point, we call the assembly an acoustic stack. Again, consistency along the array must be monitored. Figure 8 shows
a piezocomposite assembly with 7 pillars per element electrode (lateral dimension), featuring a single matching layer.
Figure 8: A typical 1-3 piezocomposite with a single

quarter-wavelength matching layer.
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Packaging
The last mechanical step is to insert the acoustic stack and its interconnect into the probe frame. The volume between the
back of the acoustic stack and the frame top is filled with damping material which is normally an epoxy mixture that is
optimized for maximum attenuation of back-propagating sound waves and acoustic matching with the stack. This backing
material will fine-tune the electro-acoustic response of the array elements. The backing plays an important role in the pulse
compression (or bandwidth) of a transducer. The epoxy potting will also protect all the micro-coaxial wires and the fragile
soldering work, while providing a stiff support for the acoustic stack while in operation.
Quality-Assurance
The last step is to validate the overall performance of the array transducer. Typically, all elements are monitored for their
frequency, bandwidth and sensitivity. A report is created and a print version is provided with each delivered unit.
OBSERVATIONS
The described process may differ from one manufacturer to the other, but in essence, the previous steps are used in the
fabrication of phased arrays for NDT. One can predict that such a process infers a lot of manual operations requiring dexterity
and time. It also often leads to defective arrays, which will give rise to a higher retail price for the functional units. The yield
is particularly bad when a new combination of pitch, frequency, bandwidth and impedance matching is designed. Therefore,
the industry would benefit in standardizing the pitches and frequencies, being able to reuse them in many array designs.
Another dead cost in each probe is its interconnection. Its role is simply to link the instrument to the piezo-elements.
Clearly, it has no value-added in an inspection. Interestingly, it represents a substantial portion of the probe manufacturing
costs, essentially because it takes time to solder micro-coaxial cables one by one. Unfortunately, low-cost countries are not
interested in the quantities involved in NDT. They can barely cope with the demand and quantities in medical.
Medical array probes are produced well above 100,000 units per year and have a cost of approximately 500 to 1000 USD. It
is unlikely that the NDT array probe production will some day reach this level. At the same time, NDT array manufacturers
have always said the cost of probe would drop only when the quantities would be significant. Standardization is obviously
required in order to yield increased quantities in manufacturing.
Due to the state-of-the-art and to financial reasons, the only way NDT could benefit of much cheaper probes is to restrict
the number of acoustic stack designs and by keeping the interconnect separate from the active piezo-elements. Another
possibility is to simply reduce the profit. The problem is that the manufacturers gross margins will become too tight and
there will be an impact in the long term such as poor quality-assurance or poor service.
CURRENT WORKFLOW
The most common workflow to solve an application with phased array is the following (or something very similar).
The user:
1. Describes the geometry of the component to inspect.
2. Reports any previous experience with monotransducer ultrasound on the component, either as a trial or real inspection.
Then the application-solver:
3. Depicts the insonification requirement.
4. Depicts the array design.
5. Depicts the wedge design.
6. Verifies the practicality of the array and wedge design, and a redesign may be compulsory.
7. Tries to get access to a probe and a wedge of comparable specification in order to validate the insonification and
procedure. If not available, jump to step 9.
8. Optimizes the probe and wedge design.
9. Orders the probe and wedge from manufacturer.
10. Uses the new probe and wedge to validate the insonification and finalizes the procedure.
11. Re-designs the probe and wedge to better fit needs, if ever required. (Repeat steps 9 and 10.)
12. Finalizes and publishes procedure.
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And lastly, the user:

13. Proceeds with on-site inspection with procedure.
14. Provides feedback to application-solver (is there a better term for this?) on the quality of results and eventual
improvements to probe and wedge design.
Although steps 1 to 3 are relatively quick and inexpensive for most cases, steps 4 to 12 represent a long, tedious, and
expensive adventure, especially for the non-initiated. It should be noticed that many times, multiple probes are required to
solve an application, perhaps discouraging the user to pursue the work adequately. A new probe technology is proposed in
order to simplify this workflow.
NEW PROBE TECHNOLOGY

The new probe concept being proposed consists of standardizing as much things as possible in a probe design. Looking at
previous section III.b), the connector (1), the cable length (2), the man-hours of assembly (3), and the mechanical components
(4) can all be standardized very easily. A study of all popular arrays and applications can also lead to some standardization of
the acoustic stacks (5). Automation can also decrease the cost of quality-assurance report generation (6).
The new concept is a search unit that has low-cost, Detachable Active Array Heads (DAAH) of standard connectivity and
footprint. The heads are available in two versions. The first version features the flat array itself with holes for external wedge
mounting. The second version features an integral wedge. The integral wedge can be made with the proper cut angle for
longitudinal or shear wave generation, with or without contouring.
The heads are designed to be rugged and as compliant as possible with popular manual UT codes. The goal is to offer
a low-cost, industrial, hassle-free phased array solution to very common UT inspections, without an absolute need for
customization. The new technology has several advantages over the current monolithic approach (all-in-one cable and
array).
The first advantage is to lower production costs and therefore it allows suppliers to build up inventory in many geographical
locations, closer to the end-user. It allows the retail price to drop from 20% down to 5 to 8% of the portable instrument value.
Figure 8: The different parts of a DAAH search unit.
Figure 9: The DAAH technology allows for integrated

interconnect solutions such as Y-splitting, keeping the
heads available for other interconnect contexts.
The second advantage is to reduce the cost of the inspection solution. It saves both the cost of the search unit, but also avoids
spending precious time in the design and qualification process of an array.
The new concept leads to a third advantage. The user could try, at low cost, different probe heads to solve an application.
Once the user finds the probe head that works best, an optional optimization phase can be started in order to get a final search
unit design.
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A fourth advantage is that the adaptor can be declined with different instrument connectors like Hypertronics, ITTCannon,
TCZIF, and I-PEX (formerly known as MajorLeague). Therefore, the users can invest their money in the acoustics without
being tied to a certain instrument manufacturer.
The fifth advantage is about the interconnect. The concept reduces the number of insertion cycles in the instrument, which
may reduce the risk of damaging its pins. Also, adaptors can be produced for multi-head setups, such as Ysplitters,
therefore avoiding multi-level connectivity that is bulky for on-site inspections.
The new concept leads to a sixth advantage. The standard footprint leads to the standardization of external wedge footprint
and scanner attachment methods, which is currently a bit hectic and vendor-specific.
The concept by itself is rather simple. For decades, monotransducers have been detachable from the cable. The proposed
design is just a phased array equivalent, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: DAAH concept compliance with mono-transducer.
The only perceivable disadvantage is the limitation imposed by the footprint size. For the sake of ruggedness, the footprint is
limited to a discreet size in which elements should be contained. This can be circumvented by the creation of several footprint
families.
The new concept aims at the 80/20 rule, where
models and families should be created for 80%
of the market needs. There will always be a need
for custom array designs with special pitches,
frequencies and mechanical dimensions.
Table 2: Code compliance of Table 1 DAAH as per popular

manual UT codes.*
The first footprint family (Type 1) allows for a

certain degree of code compliance (Table 2).
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NEW PROPOSED WORKFLOW

The new probe technology allows for a new proposed workflow described hereunder.
The user:
1. Finds any previous experience with monotransducer ultrasound on the component, either as a trial or real inspection.
2. Orders a detachable probe head with specifications and/or performance that are close to the monotransducer(s).
3. Uses the probe head to validate the insonification and finalizes the procedure, if results are satisfactory. If not, workflow
continues with step 4. Then the phased array expert:
4. Re-designs the search unit to better suit end user needs, if required. The new search unit may be designed as a custom
probe head or a monolithic probe.
5. Finalizes and publishes procedure.
And lastly the user:
6. Proceeds with on-site inspection using procedure.
7. Provides feedback to the phased array expert on the quality of results and eventual improvements to the search unit
design.
The new technology should allow for steps 1 to 3 to be accomplished within 2 to 3 weeks realistically. In comparison, steps 1
to 9 of the normal workflow (IV) takes generally 7 to 10 weeks in practice. Major sites and serious customers may also want
to build their own DAAH inventory, as they already do with mono-transducers. This would allow urgent inspection needs to
be met with phased array. It is believed the new workflow will enable higher levels of reactivity for the customers projects,
providing a new reputation for quick turn-arounds, simplicity and low-cost to phased array manual UT.
RESULTS
Many prototypes were fabricated and at the time of publishing this paper, the production units were available in different
frequencies, pitches and wedge integrations. In this section, well talk about the results obtained for the 5 MHz array model
T1-PE-5.0M32E0.8P. The array has 32 elements and a pitch of 0.8 mm, with an elevation of 12 mm.
The array had the following targeted performances:
1. Central frequency of 5.0 MHz +/- 0. 5.
2. Bandwidth of no less than 80% for all elements.
3. Maximum sensitivity deviation of 1.5 dB.
4. Electro-acoustic performance.
The prototypes were tested using an automated test bench that records all impulse responses and measures all the important
characteristics of each element. The probe was installed on a Rexolite block and echoes from the 25 mm backwall were
analyzed. Figure 10 shows the consistency among elements for frequency, bandwidth and sensitivity.
Figure 10: Uniformity of the elements.
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The results obtained surpassed the design goals. Four probe units were tested and the following results account for all of
them. The average frequency was 5.00 MHz with maximum 0.1 MHz deviation for the worst element. The impulse response
was virtually identical for all elements. The average bandwidth was 100% with no less than 98% for the worst element. The
sensitivity of each element was within 0.42 dB of the average for all four probes, which is near the best the state-of-the-art
can offer.
Figure 11: A typical impulse response from an element array.
Imaging
The prototypes were tested with a shear wave wedge for imaging on carbon steel blocks. Unlike the medical industry, there
is no reference imaging block for NDT. An AWS resolution block was used as it minimizes the imaging artifacts due to
bouncing waves on close reflectors.
The 60-degree cluster of three side-drilled holes was imaged with an optimized focal point located on the center hole. The
sector scan was set to 0.25 degree of resolution and it was zoomed in. Table 3 compares the DAAH results obtained with the
results obtained with a well-known probe manufacturer. The DAAH prototype needed 14 dB less gain to provide the same
A-scan amplitude. The latter probe didnt have the exact same aperture size, so the relative sensitivity should be computed.
In this case, the DAAH prototype showed a better sensitivity of 10.4 dB. For applications with high-attenuation materials or
when tip diffraction is essential, such a boost in sensitivity is very helpful.
Table 3: Imaging compared with a well-known
manufacturer.
We also compared the sweep range on an IIW block. The DAAH prototype had a -6 dB sweep range from 34 to 78 degrees,
in shear waves. The peak amplitude occurs at 45 degrees. It showed excellent sensitivity at 45, 60 and 70 degrees, which are
the most common angles used in manual UT.
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Figure 12: The -6 dB sweep range goes from 34 to 78 degrees (SW).
Ruggedness
The design was targeting an industrial protection ranking of IP-66. The mechanical design of the mating socket and head had
to be resistant to fine dust and high-pressure water jets.
There was no apparent variation of the above results after exposing the units to this environmental stress. We also tried a full
immersion at 15 cm with success. The unit was also drop-tested on a concrete floor from 3 meters of altitude. The mating of
the socket and the detachable head remained perfect and the only perceivable effect was an aesthetical degradation of
the casing.
Figure 13: The DAAH sealing was tested in immersion at 15 cm.
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CONCLUSION
The new Detachable Active Array Head (DAAH) technology is very promising. The detachable acoustic head becomes the
through value-added of the search unit and provides freedom in the selection of the instrument model and manufacturer.
Among the numerous advantages of the new concept, the low price and quick availability should induce a new reputation
of affordability and simplicity to phased array manual UT. The technology performs as well as the state-of-the-art can offer,
showing electro-acoustic and imaging results that are among the best available currently.
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ASNT Fall Conference and Quality Testing Show 2007 [Las Vegas, NV, November 2007]: pp 285-297.

Copyright 2007, 2011,

Detachable Active Array Head (DAAH):

Figure 1: Evolution of the probe-to-instrument price ratio (rough estimates).

Figure 2: A phased array beam

Figure 4: Sequential beams are generated and produce A-scans.

Figure 5: Definition of D-scan weld length axis (dotted arrow)

laser-vaporizing process is normally used to isolate the individual elements of

Figure 7: A polymer is filling the

Figure 8: A typical 1-3 piezocomposite with a single

And lastly, the user:

NEW PROBE TECHNOLOGY

Figure 8: The different parts of a DAAH search unit.

Figure 9: The DAAH technology allows for integrated

Table 2: Code compliance of Table 1 DAAH as per popular

The first footprint family (Type 1) allows for a

NEW PROPOSED WORKFLOW

Figure 10: Uniformity of the elements.

Figure 11: A typical impulse response from an element array.

Figure 12: The -6 dB sweep range goes from 34 to 78 degrees (SW).

Figure 13: The DAAH sealing was tested in immersion at 15 cm.

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