Patent ID: 8811721

Claim:
A three-dimensional ultrasonic inspection apparatus comprising: an ultrasonic transducer in which a plurality of piezoelectric vibrators are disposed in a matrix or an array; a driving element selecting unit to sequentially select piezoelectric vibrators from the plurality of piezoelectric vibrators disposed in the ultrasonic transducer to produce an ultrasonic wave; a signal detecting circuit to cause the ultrasonic wave generated by the piezoelectric vibrator selected by the drive element selecting unit to propagate through an acoustic wave propagating medium and enter a joined area of an object to be inspected for receiving a reflected echo from the joined area, and to detect an electric signal corresponding to the reflected echo from the joined area; a signal processing unit to subject the electric signal detected by the signal detecting circuit to signal processing, and to generate three-dimensional imaging data by causing the electric signal to correspond to a mesh element partitioned in a three-dimensional imaging region set inside the object to be inspected; a first peak detecting unit to detect a first peak of the intensity distribution of the three-dimensional imaging data in depth direction (z direction), the first peak primarily appearing at a depth position being deeper than a reference depth; a second peak detecting unit to detect a second peak of the intensity distribution of the three-dimensional imaging data in depth direction, the second peak primarily appearing at a depth position being deeper than the depth position at which the first peak appears; a joint portion image creation unit to create a three-dimensional image of a joined area by mapping a distance, between the depth position at which the first peak appears and the depth position at which the second peak appears, in depth direction at each position on x-y plane; an open/small determination unit to determine whether a blowhole in the joined area is absent and a size of molten-solidified portion of the joined area satisfies a determination criteria in accordance with the three-dimensional image of the joined area created by the joint portion image creation unit and the determination criteria which is preset; a stick weld determination unit to determine whether the joined area determined whether the blowhole in the joined area is absent and the size of molten-solidified portion of the joined area satisfies the determination criteria is tightly joined each other without melting; and a display unit to display at least one of the three-dimensional image and at least one of a result determined by the open/small determination unit and a result determined by the stick weld determination unit.