New Imaging Systems for Advanced Non-Destructive Evaluation
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Strathclyde
Department Name: Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Abstract
The science of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) involves the integrity testing and monitoring of components and structures to improve reliability and safety. It is therefore an essential activity to maintain the quality of life in any advanced society. Requirements for NDE exist in the supply chain for almost all industrial and consumer products, and an increasingly vital role for NDE is to assure the safe operation of ageing infrastructure (for example in both fossil fuel and nuclear power stations). As such, there exists an enormous application range, spanning the aerospace, nuclear, oil and gas, chemical, transport and building industries. While NDE is of critical strategic importance to all of these industrial sectors, it must be appreciated that for the end user, it represents an additional overhead and consequently, there is a continuous requirement to provide improved inspection at lower cost. Given the global demands of aging infrastructure, there is an urgent need for improved technology. The funding requested from EPSRC will assist the applicants in establishing an integrated research centre for NDE imaging technologies at Strathclyde University. Active areas of research will include: robotic vehicles in the form of autonomous, remote sensing agents (RSAs); new types of ultrasonic and electro-magnetic array transducers; biologically inspired array processing; new imaging technologies for microscale NDE and new methods for magnetic imaging. The equipment and support infrastructure (supported through The University of Strathclyde) will also be utilised to facilitate industrial technology transfer through a new model currently being implemented at Strathclyde and supported financially by Scottish Enterprise. An important strategic consequence of this vision will be the eventual creation of a dedicated laboratory containing state-of-the-art, multi-technology scanning equipment for rapid NDE of different structural components, ranging in size from microns to metres. Some of the required equipment is available commercially, but other components will need to be customised and the end product will constitute a globally unique range of research infrastructure. The laboratory will enhance and integrate research capability across a wide range of academic disciplines, spanning engineering, materials science, information technology and mathematics. It will also provide a prototype testing laboratory for some extremely important sectors of UK industry and will through time become a focus for applied research, thereby providing solutions for some very real and difficult problems.
Publications
Punzo G
(2018)
Bipartite Guidance, Navigation and Control Architecture for Autonomous Aerial Inspections Under Safety Constraints
in Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems
Riise, J
(2018)
Methods for improving the accuracy of automated NDE systems
Stephen Pierce (Co-Author)
(2011)
Towards smart sonar transducers - polarimetric sensing for sonar array compensation
Summan R
(2017)
The Influence of the Spatial Distribution of 2-D Features on Pose Estimation for a Visual Pipe Mapping Sensor
in IEEE Sensors Journal
Summan R
(2015)
Spatial calibration of large volume photogrammetry based metrology systems
in Measurement
Summan R
(2014)
Practical constraints on real time Bayesian filtering for NDE applications
in Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing
Summan R
(2019)
Novel algorithms for 3D surface point cloud boundary detection and edge reconstruction
in Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
Summan R
(2016)
Conformable eddy current array delivery
Description | Development of new ultrasonic imaging procedures, with applications to non-destructive testing and medical. New approaches for robotic sensor deployment. |
Exploitation Route | In developing new inspection procedures for aerospace, civil, oil and gas and power structures. |
Sectors | Aerospace Defence and Marine Chemicals Education Energy Environment Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Transport |
Description | Equipment grant has been used to underpin new research and funding across a wide range of Non Destructive Testing disciplines. |
First Year Of Impact | 2010 |
Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Chemicals,Education,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
Impact Types | Societal Economic |
Description | AURA |
Amount | £900,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Innovate UK |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 02/2012 |
End | 01/2014 |
Description | Autonomous Manufacturing |
Amount | £2,000,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/N018427/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 04/2016 |
End | 04/2020 |
Description | New Wire Additive Manufacturing (NEWAM) |
Amount | £5,886,209 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/R027218/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 05/2018 |
End | 06/2024 |
Description | VIEWS |
Amount | £30,000,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 113040 |
Organisation | Innovate UK |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 05/2014 |
End | 06/2016 |
Description | NNL |
Organisation | National Nuclear Laboratory |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Consultancy work evaluating electromagnetic and ulrasonic inspection of AGR fuel pins |
Collaborator Contribution | Technology and procedures for inspection |
Impact | Technical findings, new inspection techniques and capabilities |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | SPIRIT |
Organisation | SPIRIT Aerosystems |
Country | United States |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Partnership on ATI Innovate UK VIEWS program on new technology |
Collaborator Contribution | Developing integrated robotic NDT and metrology cell |
Impact | New inspection capabilities |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Silverwing |
Organisation | Silverfit |
Country | Netherlands |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Licensing of software for robotic control of crawler platform |
Collaborator Contribution | Software and knowhow |
Impact | New techniques for inspection coverage |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | VICON |
Organisation | Vicon Motion Capture |
Country | United States |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Developing new calibration procedures for 3D metrology photogrammetry |
Collaborator Contribution | Software and algorithm development |
Impact | New calibration technologies |
Start Year | 2012 |