 Can TOFD replace conventional UT on welding?

Posted by: Rolf Diederichs , E-mail: info@ndt.net, on May 20, 1997 at 16:55:43:

Many advantages of the TOFD (Time of Flight Diffraction) method

are reported in literature.
Since the method works fast it can be an economically alternative to pulse echo UT or X-ray.
What are the draw backs especially for welding testing?
Is the method just a useful addition?
Is there already a standard established?

Rolf Diederichs

Re: Can TOFD replace conventional UT on welding?

Posted by: Ed Ginzel , E-mail: eginzel@mri.on.ca, on May 21, 1997 at 17:54:42:

In Reply to: Can TOFD replace conventional UT on welding? posted by : Rolf

Diederichs on May 20, 1997 at 16:55:43:

TOFD has been proposed as a viable option to Pulse-echo methods by some practitioners.
However, it suffers from several shortcomings that can limit its effectiveness in some
situations.
The lateral wave is usually used as a reference indicating the entry surface. It has the typical
ringdown associated with pulse length at any interface. This ring time is a function of several factors
including probe damping, element nominal frequency and angle of incidence. Near surface defects
are either not detected or not possible to size due to the dead zone formed by the lateral wave.
Advocates of the method point out that a disruption of the lateral wave can be seen where near
surface nonfusion and undercut are present, however, the advantage of precise depth assessment
associated with TOFD advantages is not seen here.
In a situation where a high-low (poor fitup or mismatch) exists between two welded pieces, the
transmitted pulse forms two signals off the opposite wall, one from the higher side arriving prior to
the one from the lower. The amount of high-low can be accurately assessed but if a defect occurred
in the lower of the two sides the backwall signal from the higher side could obscure the defect.
In both cases a pulse-echo technique can be adapted to inspect these areas to provide improved
coverage where TOFD is not ideal.
In the specific application described for pipeline girthweld inspections the problems are
compounded by the relatively thin wall used. Typically 9mm to 16mm wall thicknesses are used in
North American. The lateral wave duration for the 4 MHz probe used by one of the service providers
is about 5mm. On a 9mm wall over 50% of the metal is not ideally inspected using TOFD. On a
16mm wall the situation improves but it is not totally corrected. I have managed to reduce this dead
zone to about 2mm using a 15 MHz highly damped probe but grain structure starts to be detected. It
is possible to apply digital signal processing to effectively cancel the lateral wave by adding a phase-
reversed equivalent signal to the lateral wave signal. This is an attempt to look under the entry
"noise" and see near surface signals. This is done off line and would therefore require more than
doubling the evaluation time.

TOFD is more than just a useful addition. Because TOFD is not as sensitive to defect orientation it is
a necessity to assess irregular volumetric flaws more common to manual welding. Specifications
normally require assessment of indications based on amplitude which, although reasonable for
planar flaws of a fixed orientations, suffers for non ideal reflection surfaces. Until now, pipeline
inspections were satisfied with the pulse-echo techniques as the welding process was a mechanized
Gas Metal Arc Welding process where primarily planar nonfusion was the concern.

Standards and proposed standards for TOFD exist but these are not referenced in the pipeline
industry. For example, British Standard BS 7706 is a Guide for using TOFD and prEN583-6. There
is a draft for Acceptance Criteria for TOFD based on workmanship and is mentioned in Insight
(April 1997 vol. 39 #4) by F.Dijkstra et al.

Re: Can TOFD replace conventional UT on welding?

Posted by: Udo Schlengermann , E-mail: uschlengermann@krautkramer.de, on May 23, 1997 at
14:00:00:

In Reply to: Can TOFD replace conventional UT on welding? posted by : Rolf Diederichs on May
20, 1997 at 16:55:43:

This is an answer by Udo Schlengermann to the questions of Rolf Diederichs

"Can TOFD replace conventional UT on welding?"
and give also some additional details to the reply of Ed Ginzel:

1. The British Standard 7706 (1993) 'Guide to calibration and setting-up of the ultrasonic time-of-
flight (TOFD) technique for the detection, locating and sizing of flaws' shows some general
examples of weld testing using TOFD but gives no acceptance criteria and no special calibration
parameters or reference blocks for these applications.
Because of this lack of experience the European Standard ENV 583-6 (1997) "Time-of-flight
diffraction technique as a method for defect detection and sizing" is only a preliminary standard
(symbol V) for a three years period. More experience is needed
· on calibration procedures,
· on detection capability,
· on locating capability.
The capability of TOFD to size defects is out of question.
After that period there will be a ballot wether EVN 583-6 should be cancelled or revised into a 'real'
European Standard.

2. The usual TOFD procedure uses wide ultrasonic beams to image not only diffracted signals but
also the lateral wave on the surface and the reflection at the backsurface simultaneously. Scanning of
areas with wide beams of course needs less time than scanning with narrow beams, but spatial
resolution is better with narrow beams. So data collection on site by TOFD is faster than most
conventional methods. But TOFD images have to be evaluated afterwards offline and this needs a lot
of time and a big catalogue of typical TOFD images and experienced experts which slow down the
process and increase cost compared to common techniques.
3. As Ed. Ginzel pointed out already, TOFD is a technique for precise depth assessment. This is
because a digital flaw detector has a precise clock to measure time-of-flight. But to determine
locations by TOFD, i.e. by time differences , some important assumptions have to be made.

· There must be clear signals

But diffracted signals are very weak, at least 20 dB less than reflected signals.
Not all natural defects, especially typical weld defects, generate diffracted signals, so TOFD will not
detect them.

· The ultrasound velocity must be independent of the direction of propagation.

This is fulfilled by forged parts with low structural noise. But not by anisotropic materials and coarse
grained materials. Also some rolled steels (thermomechnical processed) are anisotropic. So TOFD
will mislocate signals in these materials and evalution of the image will be wrong.

4. Diffracted signals are only generated at edges (circular waves around the point of origin). But
because wide sound beams are used with TOFD the interaction of this diffractor with the beam
generates a long arch of possible locations of the point of origine (showing the extension of the
beam, not the shape of the flaw). An untreated TOFD B-scan image therefore does not show a
reconstruction of the defect, but only possible locations of special points of a defect. This problem
can be solved by a synthetic aperture focussing algorithm (SAFT) But in practice today TOFD
testing is done without it.

5. As Ed Ginzel already mentioned, the lateral wave and the backwall echo generate permanent dead
zones for possible flaw signals close to these surfaces. This problem of course can be treated by
signal processing procedures, e.g. by convolution, but it is not done till now.

6. When asking wether a testing technique can be replaced by another, the main task is wether a
method can detect and evaluate the critical flaws of the object.
Here TOFD has some limitations, because cracks are most critical close to surfaces, and TOFD has
dead zones there.
On the basis of fracture mechanics plane cracks are very critical to structures, but TOFD detects only
the end of cracks by diffraction. Wether diffracting points are connnected (dangerous crack) or
isolated must be evaluated using other criteria (phases of signals, shadowing effects on the reflected
signal or on the lateral wave).

7. When ultrasonic testing has to be done for safety reasons, it is a high risk to replace a proofed
technique by another one which seems to be faster or cheaper.
Safety and reliability of the testing are much higher if methods are used which offer strong
interaction with critical defects for a safe detection and correct location.
For cracks these physical phenomena are reflection at planes or corners, reflection of surface waves
or wave mode conversion.
Diffraction is a weak interaction and not all natural defects show diffraction.
Therefore in safety related testing TOFD cannot replace existing techniques which allow detection
and locating of defects with higher reliabilty.

Udo Schlengermann
 Re: Can TOFD replace conventional UT on welding?
Posted by: H. Wuestenberg , E-mail: Hermann.Wuestenberg@bam-berlin.de , on May 27, 1997 at
08:10:54:

In Reply to: Can TOFD replace conventional UT on welding? posted by : Rolf Diederichs on May
20, 1997 at 16:55:43:

The debate about advantages and drawbacks of the application of the TOFD approach for ultrasonic
weld inspection should not forgot the original reasons for the introduction of the ultrasonic weld
inspection during the 60th of this century.
The mayor advantage at that time had been the better crack detection potential of the ultrasonic
method against x-ray techniques in view of an increased use of steels and welding technologies with
a remarquarble risc of diverse cracking phenonema (e.g. cold cracking, transverse cracks etc. ). An
ultrasonic technique based on the matching between the orientation of the beam and possible crack
surfaces and/or based on the corner effect together with a suitable choice of the amplitude related
sensitivity had been the back bone for a successful application of the ultrasonic weld inspection. The
listed interactions are using a reflection rather than a diffraction at the defect that means the zero-th
order diffraction instead of higher order diffractions. This is an important fact because the reflection
(=zero-th order diffraction) can be reduced to fairly simple basic physical laws enabling us to predict
the response from cracklike or other defects with reliable assumptions. Especially worst case
conditions that means the influences reducing the echo answers from cracks can be taken into
account (e.g. misorientation, mode conversions etc.). This is a distinct advantage against all other
techniques using weaker interactions based on higher order diffractions, because in most cases they
can only be calculated for idealized conditions like e.g. the response from a crack tip. Residual stress
conditions, corrosion products between the crack boundaries or crack branching having a
tremendous influence on the crack tip diffraction can only be estimated from experimental data but
not be predicted and therefore not taken into account during a sensitivity setting procedure or the
choice of suitable angles of incidence. This is until today the mayor reason why TOFD approaches
will have difficulties to guarantee under worst case assumptions the reliable detection of cracks in
the before mentioned steel and welding technology combination with a certain risc of cracking. In
addition also for the TOFD the dependency of an indication from the possible misorientation of
linear diffraction sources have to be considered.
Fortunately modern welding procedures have in the past strongly reduced the probability of cracking
bringing into the foreground again conventional quality deficiencies in welds like slags and porosity.
For this situation the TOFD methods may be valuable tools because they can easely detect
corresponding defects. This explains partly the obvious success of NDE vendors applying TOFD
and should be considered during the application of TOFD. But one should not oversee the
limitations for a reliable crack detection, which could result in severe riscs, if this technique will be
used for welds with a somehow increased potential of cracks. Such a situation can nowadays not be
excluded given the fact that a global economy orders welded products every where, even on places,
where the experience with the cracking potential is not always present.
The possibility of TOFD methods to size crack dimensions once they are detected is not discussed
here. This is of course an important advantage of all crack tip based sizing approaches and is not
specific to the TOFD technique.

H. Wuestenberg

For more information see: TOFD in UTonline 09/97