Monitoring the integrity of engineering infrastructure non-destructively
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Mechanical Engineering
Abstract
This proposal seeks funding for a five year early career fellowship programme which aims to establish monitoring of engineering infrastructure with permanently installed arrays of NDE sensors as an alternative to conventional inspections. There are clear industrial drivers that motivate the use of permanently installed NDE sensors, however, a range of challenges need to be overcome before these systems can be adopted on a large scale in industry. Key issues are robust transducer hardware, coverage and defect sensitivity, data handling and interpretation, as well as the quantification of uncertainties in detection and sizing of defects. This fellowship has identified 3 industrial applications that span these challenges and 3 research work packages that will seek generally applicable solutions to the associated problems. Use of the industrial applications as examples enables grounding of the generally applicable research work and accelerated knowledge and technology transfer to industry. The research will be carried out by Dr. Frederic Cegla at Imperial College London who has a proven track record in research and technology transfer of ultrasonic monitoring equipment. The vision of the fellowship is aligned with that of the UK Research Centre in Non-destructive Evaluation (RCNDE) and its 16 industrial members.
Planned Impact
The proposed project aims to establish NDE monitoring as a viable alternative to conventional inspection. The obvious target beneficiaries of this are the NDE industrial users and the end users of NDE data such as the structural integrity community. The project addresses key industrial problems but is too speculative to attract immediate direct investment from industry. Successful outcomes of the project will enable safer and more economical plant operation. About 75% of the costs of a conventional inspection are access and setup costs; permanent installation of inexpensive sensor will therefore save 75% of that cost for each additional measurement. An effective monitoring tool will enable more effective planning and scheduling of the replacement of damaged plant components; this can save valuable downtime that is commonly quoted to be in the order of £1M pounds per day (as communicated by RCNDE member companies). Together with the added benefit of keeping the workforce away from dangerous places, the monitoring of NDE data is very attractive to plant operators. The industrial partners of this proposal have already identified potential applications where monitoring will present a clear benefit to their operations. Hence, there is a high probability of transferring successful research into the field. Any intellectual property generated by the research project will be commercially exploited through Imperial Innovations, the Imperial College technology transfer company; this may be by forming a spin-off company or by patenting technology and licensing it to an interested party. Two potential licensees are Guided Ultrasonics Limited and Permasense Ltd., both spin-off companies of the Imperial College NDE group but other companies will also be considered by Imperial Innovations. This arrangement has worked very well for other research funded by EPSRC at Imperial College.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Frederic Cegla (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Benstock D
(2014)
The influence of surface roughness on ultrasonic thickness measurements.
in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Benstock D
(2016)
Sample selection for extreme value analysis of inspection data collected from corroded surfaces
in Corrosion Science
Benstock D
(2017)
Extreme value analysis (EVA) of inspection data and its uncertainties
in NDT & E International
Gajdacsi A
(2016)
The effect of corrosion induced surface morphology changes on ultrasonically monitored corrosion rates
in Smart Materials and Structures
Gajdacsi A
(2015)
Ultrasonic wall loss monitoring of rough surfaces
Herdovics B
(2016)
Structural health monitoring using torsional guided wave electromagnetic acoustic transducers
in Structural Health Monitoring
Herdovics B
(2018)
Compensation of phase response changes in ultrasonic transducers caused by temperature variations
in Structural Health Monitoring
Herdovics B
(2018)
Long-term stability of guided wave electromagnetic acoustic transducer systems
in Structural Health Monitoring
Isla J
(2017)
EMAT phased array: A feasibility study of surface crack detection.
in Ultrasonics
Isla J
(2016)
Optimization of the Bias Magnetic Field of Shear Wave EMATs
in IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
Isla J
(2017)
Coded Excitation for Pulse-Echo Systems.
in IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control
Isla J
(2016)
The Use of Binary Quantization for the Acquisition of Low SNR Ultrasonic Signals: A Study of the Input Dynamic Range.
in IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control
Isla JA
(2019)
Simultaneous transmission and reception on all elements of an array: binary code excitation.
in Proceedings. Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
Wang Y
(2018)
Acoustic waveguides: An attractive alternative for accurate and robust contact thermometry
in Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
Zou F
(2017)
High accuracy ultrasonic monitoring of electrochemical processes
in Electrochemistry Communications
Zou F
(2018)
On quantitative corrosion rate monitoring with ultrasound
in Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry
Zou F
(2017)
High-Accuracy Ultrasonic Corrosion Rate Monitoring
in Corrosion
| Description | We have explored new sensor technology for NDE (non-destructive evaluation) monitoring applications. We have filed two patent applications to protect this technology. We have also written up the research in form of journal publications. Several of these publications have now been published and others are still in the review process. |
| Exploitation Route | Following patent protection we are seeking to find licensees for the IP or we are looking at other ways of exploiting the value that was created. The findings are also being communicated to the wider world via publications and conference presentations. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Chemicals,Electronics,Energy |
| Description | This research project has now been completed. We have applied for intellectual property protection (2 patents), one of which has been licensed and has entered the national phases, the other application has been abandoned. Nonetheless, the abandoned application has led to a new research project that has attracted further industry funding and which has resulted in further IP protection. Furthermore, many publications have resulted out of the research. These publications have been well received and are starting to have considerable impact on the field. Many of the publications already attracted a decent number of citations and some have inspired new research and . |
| First Year Of Impact | 2019 |
| Sector | Chemicals,Energy |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Description | ORCA Hub |
| Amount | £14,635,591 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/R026173/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2017 |
| End | 03/2021 |
| Title | ECHO MEASUREMENT |
| Description | An echo measurement system transmits a transmitted-signal which is modulated over a period of time corresponding to a modulation duration. The modulation could be, for example, modulation to represent a coded signal. A transducer (2), which may be common between transmission and reception, receives a received-signal which is cross-correlated with the transmitted-signal. The transmitted-signal comprises a plurality of transmission periods separated by a plurality of transmission pauses. The modulation duration extends over two or more of the transmission periods and the duration of the transmission pauses is varied within a range of transmission pause duration. The technique seeks to improve the signal-to-noise ratio without imposing undesirable other constraints. |
| IP Reference | WO2016207620 |
| Protection | Patent application published |
| Year Protection Granted | 2016 |
| Licensed | No |
| Impact | This technology enabled demonstration of simultaneous transmission and reception of data on all channels of an ultrasonic array. Several further publications resulted and demonstrations of novel ultrasonic measurements. |
| Title | GUIDED WAVE TESTING |
| Description | An apparatus for guided wave testing of a test object comprises a linear array of receiver electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs), and at least one linear array of transmitter EMATs disposed substantially parallel to the linear array of receiver EMATs and configured to launch guided waves in said test object in a direction substantially perpendicular to the at least one linear array of transmitter EMATs. Either (i) transmitter coils of the at least one linear array of transmitter EMATs have a common winding direction, receiver coils of adjacent receiver EMATs have alternating winding directions, and receiver coils of at least two adjacent receiver EMATs are connected in series, or (ii) transmitter coils of the transmitter EMATs have alternating winding directions, receiver coils of adjacent receiver EMATs have a common winding direction, and receiver coils of at least two adjacent receiver EMATs are connected in series. |
| IP Reference | WO2017158318 |
| Protection | Patent application published |
| Year Protection Granted | 2017 |
| Licensed | No |
| Impact | We are currently negotiating the licensing to other parties. |
| Company Name | SONOBOTICS LTD |
| Description | Sonobotics was founded to commercialise the research of the Imperial College NDE group as part of the ORCA hub and other projects. The company vision is to seamlessly integrated NDE technology onto robotic platforms. |
| Year Established | 2019 |
| Impact | The company is very young. To date it has sold and rented several systems to development partners and is in the processing of demonstrating the technology application in the field. |
| Website | https://www.sonobotics.com/ |