IRIS Minimum Wall-Thickness Measurement

With ultrasonic testing, it can be difficult to measure a thin-wall because of

ultrasonic noise that is generated by the frontwall echo. At the frontwall
interface, the noise may make it difficult to measure the backwall echo. There
is a period of time where this noise attenuates, after which backwall
measurement is again possible. To measure thinner walls, the frequency of the
probe must be increased. The same physical limitations that apply to
conventional ultrasonic thickness measurements also apply to the IRIS
technique; however, with the right settings, you should be able to measure the
following minimum wall thicknesses:

- With a 10 MHz probe: 1.2 mm

- With a 15 MHz probe: 1.0 mm (sometimes down to 0.8 mm)
- With a 20 MHz probe: 0.8 mm

Thus, if you are inspecting a 3.5 mm tube wall using a 10 MHz probe, you will
be unable to accurately measure a wall loss greater than about 65% [3.5 mm to
1.2 mm)/3.5 mm].

In MultiView, the minimum measurable wall thickness is determined by the

“blanking” value. The blanking value is a delay after the detection of the
frontwall echo where MultiView does not search for a backwall echo. Normally
the blanking is adjusted so that it is long enough to ensure that MultiView does
not detect frontwall echo noise.
The length of this box is the
“blanking” value. It determines the
minimum wall thickness you can
measure.
The IRIS inspection technique is very good at measuring shallow wall losses;
however, with greater levels of wall loss, the backwall echo can become lost in
the blanking. When this occurs, the technique starts to lose its sizing
capabilities. When the echo from a defect is in the blanking area, it is not
detected. Instead, the second-repeat backwall echo may be detected, which
will correspond to twice the real remaining wall thickness.

Often, with significant wall losses, the defects are rounded and will reach their
maximum depth gradually. When analyzing such defects using IRIS, it will be
clear by the shape of the B-scan that you are measuring the second-repeat
backwall (see illustration below) because the wall thickness suddenly appears
to double. This happens because the real backwall echo is lost in the blanking
and then the second repeat of the backwall echo is plotted on the B-scan.
Using this technique, defects can sometimes be measured that are deeper than
the blanking value would normally allow.