Quality Assurance of Brazed Copper Plates through Advanced Ultrasonic NDE

Ultrasonic non-destructive methods have demonstrated great potential for the detection of flaws in a material under examination. In particular, discontinuities produced by welding, brazing, and soldering are regularly inspected through ultrasonic techniques. In this paper, an advanced ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation technique is applied for the quality control of brazed copper cells in order to realize an accelerometer prototype for cancer proton therapy. The cells are composed of two half-plates, made of high conductivity 99.99% pure copper, brazed one on top of the other. Full volume ultrasonic scanning based on the pulse-echo immersion testing method were carried out to allow for the ultrasonic 2.5 D axial tomography of the cell, realizing the quality assessment of the brazing process.