Inspection Systems with Immersion Technique

Our imaging ultrasonic systems of the USPC 30XX series are optimized for investigations of a wide variety of materials and deliver high-resolution results in the form of A-, B-, C-, D- and F-scans.

The hardware consists of an industrial PC, a motor controller, an ADC board and a HILL-SCAN pulser/receiver unit. Table 1 lists an overview of available systems.

USPC	USPC 3011 NF	USPC 3010	USPC 3010 HF	USPC 3010 VHF	USPC 3060 UHF
3dB-Bandwidth	10 MHz	20 MHz	35 MHz	65 MHz	200 MHz
Pulser/Receiver	HILL-SCAN 3011 NF	HILL-SCAN 3010	HILL-SCAN 3010 HF	HILL-SCAN 3010 VHF	HILL-SCAN 3060 UHF
ADC board from	100 MS/s	100 MS/s	200 MS/s	500 MS/s	1000 MS/s
Typical applications	concrete, wood, CFRP, GFRP, metals, foam	CFRP, GFRP, metals	CFRP, metals, bondings	Thin components (<0,5 mm steel), CFRP, metals, bondings	Very thin components (<0,1 mm steel), semiconductors contacts, bondings, Pore detection, Probe characterization

Table 1: Overview of available USPC 30XX inspection systems.

A highlight is our high-frequency ultrasonic inspection system USPC 3060 UHF. Low frequency ultrasonic devices usually fail to detect smallest defects or inspecting thin components. This is where our high-frequency inspection systems with a frequency range of up to 200 MHz are successfully used.

Due to the small wavelength (between 25 and 500 μm in the material), an extremely high resolution is achieved. Very short ultrasonic pulses of less than 100 ns enable the inspection of thin-walled components, such as steel from a thickness of 0.1 mm.

Digitizer

The ADC is integrated in the USPC 30XX and is used to digitize the ultrasonic signal.

Brief description:

Up to 1 GS/s equate 1 ns time resolution
A-scan digitalization with up to 16 Bit single-shot
Digitalization and sample frequency are software controlled
Designed as PCIe board

HILL-SCAN Pulser / Receiver Cards

For a wide variety of applications in ultrasonic testing, we offer optimized pulser/receiver units with our HILL-SCAN cards. Our cards up to 20 MHz bandwidth (3011 NF and 3010) contain a VMOS pulser. The cards from a bandwidth of 35 MHz (3010 HF, 3010 VHF and 3060 UHF) contain an avalanche pulser.
All cards allow attenuation that can be switched in four stages. The attenuation setting can influence the pulse width. With the HILL-SCAN 3060 UHF card, the pulse width is directly adjustable. Apart from the 3060 UHF, all cards also offer an output voltage that can be lowered in 3 dB stages.

In addition, all HILL-SCAN cards contain the following modules:

Low-noise broadband amplifier with digital gain adjustment
External input with trigger divider
Trigger unit for generating the pulse repetition frequency
Generation of all operating voltages from the 12 V power supply
Microcontroller with RS 323 interface for test parameter setup and trigger management

All HILL-SCAN cards can be offered as an external version, which means that extra short probe cables can be used. Special versions adapted to customer needs can be offered on request.

To all HILL-SCAN cards applies:

Pulse-echo and through-transmission mode
Pulse form: needle
Transmitter connector: Lemo 00
Receiver connector: Lemo 00
Trigger input connector: SMB
Power input: 12 V DC (0,5 A, 6 W)

Our Avalanche pulser reaches its amplitude in less than 2.1 ns, the rise time of the VMOS pulser is below 6 ns (each at maximum output voltage). This enables high axial resolution and high-frequency inspections with an excellent signal-to-noise ratio. Attenuation can be switched in 4 stages in order to optimize the echo shapes. The pulser output is connected to a Lemo 00 socket. A relay connects this with the amplifier input (E) in pulse-echo mode. Therefore, it is possible to connect the probe to the S-socket or the E-socket in pulse-echo mode.

The integrated amplifier is completely encapsulated to avoid interference from the environment. The amplifier input is on a Lemo-00 socket, which is connected to the pulser via a relay in pulse-echo mode. In transmission mode, the input impedance is 75 ohms. Our low-noise amplifiers enable a maximum gain of up to 90 dB (model-specific), which means that even the smallest signals can be displayed. In order to achieve extremely high resolutions and short dead times, individual amplifier stages have a 40 % higher bandwidth than the complete HILL-SCAN card. To further increase the resolution, hardware high-pass filters and low-pass filters are integrated.
Additional high-, low- and bandpass filters can be used via software (option). The hardware gain can be set in 1 dB steps. A finer gain setting in 0.1 dB steps can be achieved via software (option). All parameters of the HILL-SCAN cards can be set via software.

	HILL-SCAN 3011 NF	HILL-SCAN 3010	HILL-SCAN 3010 HF	HILL-SCAN 3010 VHF	HILL-SCAN 3060 UHF
3dB-Bandwidth	10 MHz	20 MHz	35 MHz	65 MHz	200 MHz
Pulsertyp	VMOS	VMOS	Avalanche	Avalanche	Avalanche
Output Voltage (max.)	-390 V	-390 V	-300 V	-300 V	-300 V
Rise time (at max. U)	< 6 ns	< 6 ns	< 2,1 ns	< 2,1 ns	< 2,1 ns
Gain	90 dB	90 dB	80 dB	80 dB	52 dB
High pass filter	0/15/52/ 120 kHz	0/1/2/ 5,5 MHz	0/1/2/ 5,5 MHz	0/1/2/ 5,5 MHz	-
Low pass filter	170/290/550/ 10.500 kHz	3/6/11/ 20 MHz	3/6/11/ 35 MHz	3/6/11/ 65 MHz	-
Band pass filter	-	-	-	-	10/15/25/35/ 50/80/100 MHz

Table 2: Technical data of available HILL-SCAN Cards.

Control PC

The robust industrial standard control computer with Windows operating system and the Hillgus ultrasound software allows the setup of all inspection parameters, displays A-scans with software gates in real time, controls the scanning system and data acquisition and displays the investigation results. The ultrasonic hardware is located in a PCI slots.
The control computer is available as a stationary PC in 19-inch format (see Figure 1) or as a mobile PC with an integrated keyboard and touchpad (see Figure 2) and a transport case.