SBIR Phase I: PORTABLE EMAT PHASED ARRAY FOR CORROSION MAPPING

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to provide a better and safer alternative to conventional piezoelectric ultrasonic instruments that use liquid-coupled transducers for the inspection of pipelines, tanks, and other structures used in power generation and liquid process industries. This new instrument does not require the use of liquid coupling, and can work on rough, coated, or contaminated surfaces that cannot be inspected with conventional liquid-coupled techniques unless the part is subjected to costly and time consuming part preparation. By not using liquids, this instrument can also be used on components that are very hot, very cold, radioactive, or in a vacuum. A high-resolution ultrasonic instrument that does not use couplant and has comparable performance to a piezoelectric instrument will save inspection time, reduce inspection costs, and permit inspections while in-service, which will result in millions of dollars in savings for plant operators. Society as a whole will also benefit from improvements in safety and performance of the plants, and by reducing the amount of waste and contaminants released into the environment as direct sub-product of the inspection, or from failures in facilities and equipment. The proposed project consists of the development of a portable, high-resolution, ultrasonic phased array instrumentation, software, and transducers based on non-contact Electro Magnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT) technology to substitute or complement the tens of thousands of conventional piezoelectric instruments in the market. For the instrumentation, the research will revolve around the development of a high-power and compact 16-channel pulser/receiver with a very small dead zone that permit inspection near the surface of the part. This instrumentation will also require custom software with signal-enhancing algorithms that compensate for the small amplitude of EMAT signals. The 16-channel phased-array EMAT transducers will involve multi-physics simulation of electrical and magnetic components to develop very small and high-density coil elements that can produce enough signal amplitude at high-frequencies while handling the pulsing rates required for effective inspection, and the high-power generated by the custom instrumentation. All these components will need to be enclosed in a battery-powered package that can be used in the harsh conditions typically found in field inspections. The expected result is a portable instrument that can compete in performance with conventional piezoelectric instruments, especially in applications and inspection environments where a conventional instrument is not practical or very costly to use. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.