Development of an ultrasonic integrated system to measure the mechanical propeties and acoustical characteristics of material

This study is carried out to develop a computerized ultrasonic-based measurement system for mechanical properties and acoustical characterization of non-porous solids materials. The system employed the pulse-echo method using both longitudinal and shears waves. This system consists of a pulser/receiver generator, transducers, picoscope and personal computer. The developed system offers user-friendly procedure, yet producing accurate and reliable measurement results. The software for the system is developed using Microsoft Visual Basic Version 6.0. The front panel display is divided into the connection and control panel, the display panel and the calculation panel. The programming code for software algorithm is divided into the connection programming code, the control programming code, the display programming code and the calculation programming code. There are eight parameters of the mechanical and acoustical properties of solids materials are discussed in this study; longitudinal velocity, shear velocity, acoustical impedance, Poisson’s ratio, Young modulus, Bulk modulus, Shear modulus, and compressibility. The performance of the system is tested on 4 different types of solid materials; acrylic, aluminum, mild steel and copper. The results proved that the developed system is suitable for nonporous solid materials and the measurement error compare to the references is acceptable. However, to assess the ability of this developed system, more measurement in variety of test material should be carried out.