Precise measurement of ultrasonic parameters using labVIEW

There are many ultrasonic measurement methods that are used in nondestructive testing applications. Some typical applications include material property determination, microstructural characterization, and flaw detection. Ultrasonic parameters such as velocity and attenuation are most commonly required in these applications. The accuracy and repeatability of testing results are dependent on both the hardware used to propagate and receive the ultrasonic waveforms and on the analysis software for calculating these parameters. In this study, five analysis algorithms were implemented on a computer for measuring wave speed in a pulse echo, immersion testing configuration. A commercial software package LabVIEW was used. In velocity measurements comparisons were made between the overlap, cross-correlation, Fourier spectroscopy, phase slope, Hilbert transform algorithms. Attenuation was also measured using the Fourier spectroscopy method. Each algorithm has been applied to a steel sample and produced ultrasonic velocity within 1 percent of the mean for all five algorithms.