Materials Characterization Using Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Methods discusses NDT methods and how they are highly desirable for both long-term monitoring and short-term assessment of materials, providing crucial early warning that the fatigue life of a material has elapsed, thus helping to prevent service failures. Materials Characterization Using Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Methods gives an overview of established and new NDT techniques for the characterization of materials, with a focus on materials used in the automotive, aerospace, power plants, and infrastructure construction industries. Each chapter focuses on a different NDT technique and indicates the potential of the method by selected examples of applications. Methods covered include scanning and transmission electron microscopy, X-ray microtomography and diffraction, ultrasonic, electromagnetic, microwave, and hybrid techniques. The authors review both the determination of microstructure properties, including phase content and grain size, and the determination of mechanical properties, such as hardness, toughness, yield strength, texture, and residual stress. - Gives an overview of established and new NDT techniques, including scanning and transmission electron microscopy, X-ray microtomography and diffraction, ultrasonic, electromagnetic, microwave, and hybrid techniques - Reviews the determination of microstructural and mechanical properties - Focuses on materials used in the automotive, aerospace, power plants, and infrastructure construction industries - Serves as a highly desirable resource for both long-term monitoring and short-term assessment of materials

Ultrasonic methods have been very popular in nondestructive testing and characterization of materials. This book deals with both industrial ultrasound and medical ultrasound. The advantages of ultrasound include flexibility, low cost, in-line operation, and providing data in both signal and image formats for further analysis. The book devotes 11 chapters to ultrasonic methods. However, ultrasonic methods can be much less effective with some applications. So the book also has 14 chapters catering to other or advanced methods for nondestructive testing or material characterization. Topics like structural health monitoring, Terahertz methods, X-ray and thermography methods are presented. Besides different sensors for nondestructive testing, the book places much emphasis on signal/image processing and pattern recognition of the signals acquired.

With an emphasis on aircraft materials, this book describes techniques for the material characterization to detect and quantify degradation processes such as corrosion and fatigue. It introduces readers to these techniques based on x-ray, ultrasonic, optical and thermal principles and demonstrates the potential of the techniques for a wide variety of applications concerning aircraft materials, especially aluminum and titanium alloys. The advantages and disadvantages of various techniques are evaluated.

Engineering structures for reliable function and safety have to be designed such that operational mechanical loads are compensated for by stresses in the components bearable by the materials used. Vhat is "bearable"? First of all it depends on the properties of the chosen materials as well as on several other parameters, e.g. temperature, corrosivity of the environment, elapsed or remaining serviceable life, unexpected deterioration of materials, whatever the source and nature of such deterioration may be: defects, loss of strength, embrittlement, wastage, etc. DEFECTS and PROPERTIES of materials currently determine loadability. Therefore in addition to nondestructive testing for defects there is also a need for nondestructive testing of properties. The third type of information to be supplied by nondestructive measurement pertains to STRESS STATES under OPERATIONAL LOADS, i.e. LOAD-INDUCED plus RESIDUAL STRESSES. Residual stresses normally cannot be calculated; they have to be measured nondestructively; well-approved elastomechanical finite element codes are available and used for calculating load-induced stresses; for redundancy and reliability, engineers, however, need procedures and instrumentation for experimental checks.

This book on the Nondestructive Characterization and Imaging of Wood by Professor Voichita Bucur is truly the most outstanding reference on the subject ever written. Since the origins of mankind, wood has played a key role in the history of humans and other living creatures, ranging from provision of life from trees giving air, heat, light, and food to nourish their bodies to structures to protect them from the elements. Wood has also played a key role in one of the world's primary religions. Nondestructive diagnostics methods have long found application in medi cal practice for examination of the human body in order to detect life threatening abnormalities and permit diagnosis to extend life. Nondestructive testing has been used for many years to insure the safety of machinery, air craft, railroads, tunnels, buildings and many other structures. Therefore, it is timely for a treatise, like the present one, to be written describing how wood can be characterized without employing destructive test methods. Since wood is so valuable to mankind, it is important to know the latest methods to nondestructively characterize wood for all practical applications.

Condition assessment and characterization of materials and structures by means of nondestructive testing (NDT) methods is a priority need around the world to meet the challenges associated with the durability, maintenance, rehabilitation, retrofitting, renewal and health monitoring of new and existing infrastructures including historic monuments. Numerous NDT methods that make use of certain components of the electromagnetic and acoustic spectrum are currently in use to this effect with various levels of success and there is an intensive worldwide research effort aimed at improving the existing methods and developing new ones. The knowledge and information compiled in this book captures the current state of the art in NDT methods and their application to civil and other engineering materials and structures. Critical reviews and advanced interdisciplinary discussions by world-renowned researchers point to the capabilities and limitations of the currently used NDT methods and shed light on current and future research directions to overcome the challenges in their development and practical use. In this respect, the contents of this book will equally benefit practicing engineers and researchers who take part in characterization, assessment and health monitoring of materials and structures.

With national trade barriers falling, causing the expansion of the com petitive global market, the question of quality control has become an essential issue for the 1990s. The time where the promise was to replace a product if it does not work seems to have passed; what is more impor tant now is not so much a reduction in what is going wrong but an increase of what is going right the first time (Feigenbaum 1990). This new trend is sometimes referred to as total quality. Among the many advantages ofthis zero-defect manufacturing policy, we can enumerate (Laurin 1990): superior marketability of wholly de pendable products, enormous gain in productivity, elimination of waste ful cost in replacing poor quality work and retrofitting rejected products from the field. Although total quality is a relatively new and attractive concept for mass products such as cars, consumer electronics and per sonal computers, in many fields, mainly aerospace and military, it has been the rule for years because of security reasons.

Ultrasonic methods have been very popular in nondestructive testing and characterization of materials. This book deals with both industrial ultrasound and medical ultrasound. The advantages of ultrasound include flexibility, low cost, in-line operation, and providing data in both signal and image formats for further analysis. The book devotes 11 chapters to ultrasonic methods. However, ultrasonic methods can be much less effective with some applications. So the book also has 14 chapters catering to other or advanced methods for nondestructive testing or material characterization. Topics like structural health monitoring, Terahertz methods, X-ray and thermography methods are presented. Besides different sensors for nondestructive testing, the book places much emphasis on signal/image processing and pattern recognition of the signals acquired.

This book is devoted to non-destructive materials characterization (NDMC) using different non-destructive evaluation techniques. It presents theoretical basis, physical understanding, and technological developments in the field of NDMC with suitable examples for engineering and materials science applications. It is written for engineers and researchers in R&D, design, production, quality assurance, and non-destructive testing and evaluation. The relevance of NDMC is to achieve higher reliability, safety, and productivity for monitoring production processes and also for in-service inspections for detection of degradations, which are often precursors of macro-defects and failure of components. Ultrasonic, magnetic, electromagnetic and X-rays based NDMC techniques are discussed in detail with brief discussions on electron and positron based techniques.

Barkhausen Noise for Nondestructive Testing and Materials Characterization in Low Carbon Steels presents a balanced approach, reviewing the disadvantages and advantages of using this technique and its comparison over other magnetic testing techniques. In addition, the book looks towards future applications of this technique, in particular, its industrial applications as a method for pipeline inspection, current advantages, and barriers to implementation. The book is suitable for materials scientists, researchers and engineers, and may be applicable for those working in metallurgical plants. Not only does the book discuss fundamentals, it reviews recent discoveries, such as the correlation between magnetocrystalline energy and Barkhausen noise, the modeling of this relationship, and the application of this technique in the characterization of magnetic materials. - Provides detailed explanation for the stochastic and deterministic characteristics of Barkhausen noise - Discusses principles of applying Barkhausen noise as a non-destructive method and magnetic material characterization method - Reviews the advantages and disadvantages of this non-destructive testing technique and compares it to other competitive techniques