Cambridge Ultrasonics services to clients:

• Ideas - we are a source of ideas and innovation from the perspective of ultrasonics, physics, electronics and software.
• Brainstorming - we apply our knowledge and experience to your problems in short sessions, leveraging the skills in your R&D department. This is a low-cost way to get a project moving.
• Feasibility analysis - we take initial ideas and go away and think about them. We will do calculations and preliminary design work then prepare a report. Save money early on in a project using our experience and expertise.
• Feasibility tests - we put together a quick prototype or a model and evaluate it. Our schlieren visualization service can be used to get quick results in many applications involving ultrasound - this is a unique commercial service in the UK.
• Transducer design - we can write target specifications, design transducers for a specific applications and build prototypes. You may have a transducer that doesn't work properly - we can debug it for you.
• Systems design - transducers need drive signals, drive amplifiers, receiver amplifiers, signal processing and information needs to be displayed. We can design all the elements in the chain to whatever level of detail you require - we will stop at the point your R&D department wants to take over.
• Transducer investigation service - in one day our schlieren service can give you an insight into the operation of your transducers that you won't get by any other method. It is quite simply one of the best ways to check the performance of your transducer at low-cost.
• Lectures - we give lectures on ultrasound brimming with practical demonstrations that bring your staff up to speed quickly on the fundamental principles of ultrasonic waves and inspection systems of all kinds. Our schlieren visualization system is portable and we can bring it to you and incorporate it into the lecture (see our web-site for examples www.cambridge-en.com). We can even put your transducers into the visualization equipment and see how they are working.
  

Specific skills:

• Visualization of ultrasound - experimental investigation service.
• Finite element modelling - theoretical investigation service.
• General maths modelling - first physical principles, equivalent circuit modelling, hybrid FE and equivalent circuit modelling.
• Hardware development - electronic circuits associated with ultrasonic instrumentation, analogue conditioning, analogue signal processing, ADC, digital signal processing.
• Signal processing - prototyping in Mathcad or Matlab - source code generation in C or C++.
• Software development - PC windows software: VisualBasic, C++, instrument control, hardware interfacing, database applications.

Visualization of ultrasound - investigation service

Click here for video and still images.

Benefits & Applications

• Cut the cost and risk in developing ultrasonic systems.
• Get detailed, high-quality, video/still images of the ultrasonic output from transducers.
• See scattering from targets of any shape.
• Powerful correlation between images of ultrasound and electrical signals from receivers or signal processing - debugging of inspection systems.
• Develop, investigate, optimise or check the quality of ultrasonic transducers.
• Investigate sonochemistry and bubble dynamic effects.
• Investigate interaction of ultrasound and vortices or bubbles.
• Verifying finite element predictions.
• Application to medical scanners and transducers.
• Application to transducers for testing steel.
• Application to transducers used in gas and liquid flow-meters.
• Applications in oil/gas industry.
• Applications in nuclear industry.
• Applications in ink-jet industry.

Seeing ultrasound - speeds-up investigation

Electronic engineers have oscilloscopes and logic analysers but what about ultrasonic engineers? How can they view the ultrasonic waves they need to manipulate? The answer is usually they cannot but now the Cambridge visualization system gives ultrasonic engineers the power to see waves.

The Cambridge visualization system works with your ultrasonic system:

• It visualizes the waves coming from your transducers.
• It visualizes the waves in the geometry of interest to you.
• It can be triggered from your inspection system.
• It can trigger an oscilloscope/signal capture system - used to monitor the output signal from your ultrasonic receiver.

This creates a powerful method for investigating your problems. Its possible to find an ultrasonic wave causing a signal component at the receiver and then run time backwards to find-out what has caused that wave and then perhaps eliminate the cause or make the effect greater. You can make a change to any part of the system, such as: changing the geometry, modifying the transducer, adding something to the propagation path or changing the signal processing and see the effects on the received signal. It is the ultrasonic equivalent of a debugger in a compiler.

We offer a unique commercial service, providing a simple way for you to get access to this powerful technique. The bottom line is cost-savings and lower risk of failure. We have already helped many organisations in this way.

Benefits of an investigation service

• No capital investment - hence low cost.
• No need to train personnel in the use of highly specialised, visualizing equipment - Cambridge Ultrasonics provides trained personnel.
• No maintenance or repair charges.
• Investigation service time is usually very much quicker than doing it in-house.
• Costs are kept low because testing time is short.
• Video recording of tests for playback at your premises.

Application - medical scanner

A well-known maker of medical scanners has used our equipment to assess the output from its phased-array transducers. In one afternoon it was possible to look at the output in nearly all of the many modes of operation of one array using our real-time video schlieren equipment. Normally their transducers are put into large water tanks and a hydrophone is scanned in three dimensions: the method generates huge quantities of data on paper that have to be examined, a very time consuming business.

In one afternoon we synchronised the scanner with our visualization system, started imaging the waves from the phased array in water and quickly spotted a bright, rogue-cluster of waves away from the main focus - it shouldn’t have been there. The hydrophone test results in the archive were examined and sure enough the presence of the cluster was confirmed but it had slipped through the examination process.

A rogue-cluster is unwanted because if a strong scatterer, a piece of bone for example, happened to be at the position of the cluster it would give a strong echo. This echo would be received by the array and wrongly positioned in the image at the location of the main focus of the array. In summary, the scanner would give a false image and it might lead to the wrong diagnosis for the patient. In this case the transducer design was modified to eliminate the rogue-cluster, improving the performance.

Application - concrete inspection

The German Institute of Standards and the German Concrete Association wanted to promote the development of ultrasonic inspection of concrete and Cambridge Ultrasonics was asked to help. We made a transparent model of concrete, based upon a section of real concrete, modelling the position of large aggregate particles.

The model was immersed in water and in various transparent ionic solutions to model the acoustic impedance of the aggregates and mortar matrix. We then looked at the ultrasound passing through the model of concrete. We could see how the ultrasound was scattered randomly and what kind of transducer would best sample the waves after scattering. We then designed and made new transducers for concrete testing.

What was the final result of development? It was highly successful. We built an inspection system that can locate reinforcement bars, stressing tendons, honeycombing and other faults at depths into concrete of between 0 to 0.5 m and 0 to 2.0 m (depending on target size and concrete type).

Application - inspecting oil-well risers

The casing used in oil-well risers can be damaged and inspecting it is difficult. Ultrasound can be used effectively but there are a number of difficulties including the focusing effect of the casing. We have assisted clients by allowing them to see the output from their transducers and the echo signal from the casing wall. By monitoring the ultrasonic waves coming from the transducer and the electrical signal coming from the same transducer used as a receiver, it has been possible to identify a number of causes of problems such as: unexpected loss of signal, unexpected early signals, unexpected delays in signals, sensitivity to misalignment.

We have also been involved in the design of new transducers for this application. Our success in designing transducers for concrete, a random scattering material, has been valuable in the case of detecting corrosion because corrosion also causes random scattering. Similar principles can be used in the design of transducers to detect corrosion.