High-selectivity imaging of closed cracks in a coarse-grained stainless steel by nonlinear ultrasonic phased array

In measuring crack depths by ultrasonic testing, there are two difficulties; crack closure and coarse grains. Crack closure can cause the underestimation or miss-detection. Coarse grains can hide crack tip responses due to strong linear scatterings at coarse grains. To solve these problems, a combination of a crack opening method, global preheating and local cooling (GPLC) and a high-selectivity imaging method, load difference phased array (LDPA) was proposed. However, it has yet to be verified. Here we formed a tightly closed fatigue crack in a coarse-grained stainless-steel specimen using a stepwise-decremental method. In the specimen, we demonstrated that our method is useful in selectively imaging closed cracks in coarse-grained materials.