Patent ID: 8371171

Claim:
An ultrasonic inspection apparatus comprising: an ultrasonic transducer including a plurality of piezoelectric transducers; a flaw inspection device including a driving element selection unit connected to the plurality of piezoelectric transducers and adapted to select a required piezoelectric transducer in response to a drive signal from a signal generation unit, a signal detection circuit that causes ultrasound emitted from the piezoelectric transducer selected by the driving element selection unit to be incident on an object to be inspected, receives a reflection echo of the ultrasound, and detects an electric signal of the reflection echo, and a signal processing unit that calculates the detected electric signal of the reflection echo to thereby generate image information of an inside of the object to be inspected; a scanner mechanism including a driving section that moves the ultrasonic transducer in three axial directions intersecting each other on the object to be inspected, and a rotating section that rotates the ultrasonic transducer around a rotation axis in at least one axial direction among the three axial directions; a measurement unit measuring a distance to a surface of the object to be inspected to obtain measurement data including a group of points; a shape data generation unit, by using the measurement data including the group of points obtained by the measurement unit, for generating shape data of the surface of the object to be inspected including the group of points having position information represented by a coordinate system of the scanner mechanism; and a path information generation unit, by using the shape data generated by the shape data generation unit, for calculating a passage point on the surface of the object to be inspected that forms a scanning path of the ultrasonic transducer, and generating the scanning path information of the ultrasonic transducer in which a normal vector of the passage point on the surface of the object to be inspected and an opening surface of the ultrasonic transducer intersect each other, and a distance between the passage point and a center of the opening surface of the ultrasonic transducer is constant, wherein when a passage point on the surface of the object to be inspected is not included in a group of points that constitute the shape data, the path information generation unit performs an interpolation using the group of points that constitute the shape data so as to calculate the passage point, and the path information generation unit performs an interpolation using at least two points that are adjacent to the scanning path of the ultrasonic transducer and constitute the shape data so as to calculate a passage point on the surface of the object to be inspected.