Patent ID: 6877377

Claim:
A nondestructive ultrasonic testing method for the detection of defects in a testing area of a structural part by determining reflections on inhomogeneities in the testing area, said method comprising: permanently installing on the structure at least one ultrasonic transmitter for coupling ultrasonic excitations into the structural part and at least two ultrasonic receivers for receiving structure responses to the ultrasonic excitations; identifying a plurality of testing points within a testing area of the structural part; for each pairing of a particular testing point and a particular location of an ultrasonic receiver, determining and storing an expectancy range for a signal that will be measured by the ultrasonic receiver at the particular location, in response to an ultrasonic excitation coupled into the structural part, when said excitation is reflected by an inhomogeneity at the particular testing point; coupling at least one predetermined excitation into the structural part; measuring and storing a structure response at each receiver; comparing the structure response measured by each receiver with the stored expectancy range for each defined testing point; imaging the result of the comparison on corresponding geometric site of an ultrasonic image thus built-up successively, which geometric site is part of the respective expectancy range, whereby an identification of defective sites can take place on the ultrasonic image by a comparison of the determined inhomogeneities with structurally defined inhomogeneities; wherein, in the case of the ultrasonic testing method using a linear material, a plurality of predetermined ultrasonic excitations are sequentially coupled into the structural part with measurement and storage of the structure responses being performed by the receivers; and the structure response to a particular excitation measured by each receiver is compared with the expectancy range that is relevant to each particular testing point, determined on the basis of a sum of the sequentially coupled-in ultrasonic excitations.