JPS6356922B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an ultrasonic thickness meter, and particularly to a thickness meter suitable for displaying the thickness and bottom shape of a subject.

Conventional pocket-type ultrasonic thickness gauges display numbers, and none display thickness and bottom shape.

In addition, those that display thickness as a cross-sectional shape are conventional ultrasonic flaw detectors and storage type cathode ray tubes (CRT).
There is a combination of devices that can display the bottom shape, but these are larger than pocket-type thickness gauges and are inconvenient to carry.

The present invention eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks and provides a pocket-type ultrasonic thickness gauge that can display the thickness of a subject by the bottom shape and numbers.

According to the present invention, an ultrasonic probe is provided with a position signal generating section, and a thickness display section is provided with a flat display panel to display the bottom shape and thickness of the object.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the ultrasonic thickness gauge of the present invention. 1 is a pulser that excites the ultrasonic probe 2; The ultrasonic probe 2 is placed on the subject 3 , and the ultrasonic waves 4 generated by the ultrasonic probe 2 are reflected by the bottom surface 5 and received by the ultrasonic probe 2 . The received signal is amplified by an amplifier circuit 6 and shaped by a waveform shaping circuit 7. On the other hand, a signal is sent from the pulser 1 to the delay circuit 8 in synchronization with the excitation of the ultrasonic probe 2, and is applied to the flip-flop 9 with a slight delay. The flip-flop 9 outputs "1" as the signal from the delay circuit 8 and "0" as the signal from the waveform shaping circuit 7. The range switching circuit is used when it is necessary to switch depending on the display range or thickness of the object, and changes the level of "1".

Integrating circuit 11 integrates the output of the range switching circuit and generates a sawtooth wave that changes over time.
Leading the output of the integrating circuit 11 to the A/D converter,
When converted into a numerical display signal by the decoder 13, the thickness of the subject is displayed on the numerical display 14. In addition, the output of the integrating circuit 11 is transferred to the display range setting circuit 15.
Here, only signals above a certain level are output. Then, A/
It is converted into a digital signal by the D converter 16,
It is output to analog switch 17.

18 is a microphone for transmitting sound waves, and is attached to a microphone holder 19. A sound wave receiving microphone 20 receives sound waves from the sound wave transmitting microphone 18, and the signal is amplified by an amplifier circuit 21 and sent to a time measuring circuit 22. The time measuring circuit 22 determines the time difference between the signal sent to the sound wave sending microphone 18 and the signal sent from the sound wave receiving microphone 20, and outputs this signal to the analog switch 17. This time difference is the position signal of the ultrasound probe.

The analog switch 17 is a flat secondary display circuit 2
4, and are selected by the position signal of the ultrasonic probe and operate sequentially.
A maximum value holding circuit 23 composed of a shift register is connected to each analog switch, and stores the bottom shape of the subject at each ultrasound probe position. Therefore, this can be achieved by displaying the output of this maximum value holding circuit on a two-dimensional display circuit.

Figure 2 is a display example of a two-dimensional display circuit, where the thickness is larger than the display surface, and the display range is 25.
The part surrounded by is displayed. In this way, the display setting circuit 15 is used when setting the display range.

The signal waveform and characteristics of the ultrasonic thickness gauge of the present invention are as follows.
This will be explained with reference to FIG. 40 is the input of the ultrasonic probe 2, that is, the output I of the pulser 1. 41
is the input of the delay circuit 8 and is the same as I in 40.
42 is the output of the delay circuit 8, which is output with a delay of Δt. Δt corresponds to the path length of the ultrasonic probe 2 within the shoe. 43 is the output of flip-flop 9;
2 becomes "1" and 45 becomes "0". 44 is an input of the amplifier circuit 6, which here corresponds to a bottom echo. 45 is the output of the waveform shaping circuit 7, which corresponds to the point where the bottom echo exceeds the threshold l. 46 is the output of the range switching circuit 10, which is switched depending on the board thickness. 47 is the output of the integrating circuit 11, which generates a signal proportional to the board thickness. 48 is the output of the A/D converter 12, which outputs, for example, a binary number (1000). 49 is the output of the decoder 13, for example, 10
Outputs decimal numbers (0008), etc. 50 is the output of the display range setting circuit 15, and as shown in 47, if the thresholds are L and D, for example, only the signal between D and B can be output. Therefore, the display range can be set, and only the vicinity of the bottom surface can be enlarged and shown. 5
1 is the output of the A/D converter 16, for example, 2
Outputs decimal numbers (1010), etc. Reference numeral 52 is an input of the sound wave sending microphone 18 and the time measurement circuit 22. 5
3 is the output of the sound wave receiving microphone 20. 54 is the output of the time measuring circuit 22, which measures the pulse interval between 52 and 53 using, for example, a clock pulse, and outputs it as a binary number (110010) or a decimal number (050).

The operation of the liquid crystal display device 30 of the present invention will be explained with reference to FIG. 60, 61, and 62 take in the depth direction signal 51 and the probe position signal 54,
input into memory 34; 63 to shift register 3
Input the thickness and position in 5 and 36. At 64, the contents of the shift register are displayed on the liquid crystal display element 37 by the timing control 33. 65 is provided with a storage device 38 as necessary to perform storage or off-line processing.

The present invention is a pocket-type ultrasonic thickness gauge with a bottom shape display function added. Although a flat two-dimensional display circuit is provided to display the bottom shape, the present invention also includes the use of a display device other than a liquid crystal display device as the display circuit. Although sound waves are used to detect the position of the ultrasonic probe, the present invention also includes the use of position detection means other than sound waves.

According to the present invention, the bottom shape of the object can be displayed using a pocket-type thickness gauge, which can greatly contribute to diagnosis of corrosion and prevention of destruction accidents in many fields including nuclear power plants, petroleum plants, etc.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the ultrasonic thickness meter of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a display example of the two-dimensional display circuit of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a diagram of another embodiment. 4
The figure is an explanatory diagram of the operation of FIG. 3, and FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of the operation of the liquid crystal display device. 1... Pulsa, 2... Ultrasonic probe, 3... Subject,
4...Ultrasonic wave, 5...Bottom surface, 6...Amplification circuit, 7...Waveform shaping circuit, 8...Delay circuit, 9...Flip-flop circuit, 10...Range switching circuit, 11...Integrator circuit,
12...A/D converter, 13...decoder, 14
...Numeric display, 15...Display range setting circuit, 16...
A/D converter, 17...Analog switch, 1
8... Microphone for sound wave transmission, 19... Microphone holder, 2
0...Sound wave receiving microphone, 21...Amplification circuit, 22...
Time measurement circuit, 23... Maximum value holding circuit, 24... Two-dimensional display circuit, 25... Display range.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An ultrasonic probe placed on a subject, a pulser that excites the ultrasonic probe, and reception of reflected waves from the subject that are output from the ultrasonic probe after outputting the pulser. a time measurement unit that measures the time taken by the time measurement unit; a thickness display unit that numerically displays the thickness of the subject in accordance with the measurement time of the time measurement unit; a microphone holder installed at an arbitrary position on the subject; a sound wave sending microphone mounted on either the sound wave probe or the microphone holder and excited by the output of the pulser;
a sound wave receiving microphone mounted on the other of the ultrasonic probe and the microphone holder and receiving sound waves from the sound wave sending microphone; a sound wave receiving microphone transmitting sound waves from the sound wave sending microphone and receiving the sound waves; a distance measuring section that provides an output corresponding to the distance between the microphone holder and the ultrasonic probe according to the time until the time elapses, and a time measuring section output at this time is sequentially stored in correspondence with the output of the distance measuring section. An ultrasonic thickness gauge comprising a display section that displays and outputs the thickness of a subject as a function of distance.