Application Cases

Steel pipe structures are widely used in the industrial field. Structural failure caused by stress can have a significant impact on equipment safety. Therefore, effective stress monitoring is a crucial research area. Due to the multi-frequency and multi-modal characteristics of ultrasonic guided waves, the limitations of traditional stress measurement methods based on ultrasonic guided waves lie in the lack of systematic analysis of the impact of multi-modal fusion signals on stress measurement.

To explore the optimal guided wave stress measurement strategy, a research team from the School of Instrument Science and Technology at Harbin Institute of Technology, based on the principle of acoustoelasticity, has proposed a mathematical model for the propagation of longitudinal guided waves in pre-stressed steel pipes. This research achievement has been published in the well-known international journal of non-destructive testing research, NDT & E International. Today, Aigtek will share this in depth.

Experiment Name: Application of the ATA-2041 High-Voltage Amplifier in Axial Stress Measurement of Pipelines Based on Guided Waves

Experiment Direction: Pipeline non-destructive testing, guided waves, piezoelectric ultrasonics, stress measurement

Experimental Equipment: ATA-2041 high-voltage amplifier, signal generator, oscilloscope, tensile testing machine, piezoelectric transducer array, upper computer, etc.

Experiment Content:

This experiment uses the ATA-2041 high-voltage amplifier to excite a piezoelectric transducer array to generate L(0,2) mode guided waves in the pipeline. The characteristic of guided waves that their sound speed changes under stress is utilized to measure pipeline stress, marking the first application of a domestic power amplifier in the field of stress measurement.

Experiment Process:

A Gaussian pulse is generated by the signal generator and sent into the ATA-2041 high-voltage amplifier for distortion-free pulse amplification, resulting in a high-voltage pulse signal. Thanks to the excellent linear amplification function of the ATA-2041 high-voltage amplifier, the high-voltage signal can ensure that it has the same signal characteristics as the signal edited in the signal generator, thereby ensuring that the required frequency band range of the longitudinal guided wave mode is accurately excited. Furthermore, the excited guided waves are used to detect stress.

Experiment Results:

The guided waves excited by the piezoelectric transducer array using the ATA-2041 high-voltage amplifier can accurately measure the axial stress of steel pipes. As can be seen from the attached figure below, the voltage amplitude of the received signal can reach 0.1 V, indicating that the guided wave signal produced by the excitation signal has an excellent signal-to-noise ratio, which is the hardware basis for ensuring the consistency of the measurement results.

At the same time, the shape of the L(0,2) direct wave signal indicates that the power amplifier has a good linear amplification effect. From the experimental point of view, various errors outside the study that may affect the results have been excluded, which is the experimental basis for ensuring the validity of the analysis.

Specifications of the ATA-2041 high-voltage amplifier used in the experiment: