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Abstract
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly being utilized for the structural health assessment of on and off-shore structures. Visual inspection is the usual methodology for acquiring data from these structures, but there is often a need for contact based structural measurements, for example to assess local thickness on corroding structures. Conventional UAV platform dynamics have not traditionally allowed for such contact measurements. The limited dynamic control afforded by fixed plane rotor UAVs means that forward thrust (to apply contact forces for surface transduction) is only possible by tilting the whole platform, thus taking the UAV into a non-stationary state and limiting positional accuracy. An over-actuated UAV platform (with fully vectored thrust capability) may provide the required contact force for such thickness measurements whilst maintaining stable hovering next to the structure. The authors herein present a contact based ultrasonic thickness measurement technique, whereby an ultrasonic wheel probe deployed from a UAV was used to make single point and scanned measurements across a surface to provide a set of local thickness measurements.
A 5 MHz, dry-coupled, dual-element, ultrasonic wheel probe is used to measure the thickness of an aluminum sample plate with thicknesses of 8.2 mm, 4.5 mm and 3.2 mm, and a precision stepped calibration block with size from 31.5 mm to 17.5 mm in steps of 1 mm, then steps of 0.1 mm down to 16.5 mm over a total length of 500 mm. The thickness resolution obtainable from the ultrasonic wheel probe was typically 0.1 mm, and the positional accuracy attained from the over-actuated deployment platform was 16.6 mm when performing single point measurements.
A 5 MHz, dry-coupled, dual-element, ultrasonic wheel probe is used to measure the thickness of an aluminum sample plate with thicknesses of 8.2 mm, 4.5 mm and 3.2 mm, and a precision stepped calibration block with size from 31.5 mm to 17.5 mm in steps of 1 mm, then steps of 0.1 mm down to 16.5 mm over a total length of 500 mm. The thickness resolution obtainable from the ultrasonic wheel probe was typically 0.1 mm, and the positional accuracy attained from the over-actuated deployment platform was 16.6 mm when performing single point measurements.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring. EWSHM 2020 |
Editors | Piervincenzo Rizzo, Alberto Milazzo |
Place of Publication | Switzerland |
Publisher | Springer International Publishing AG |
Pages | 683-694 |
Number of pages | 12 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 978-3-030-64594-6 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-3-030-64593-9 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 11 Jan 2021 |
Event | European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring : 10th EWSHM - Palermo, Italy Duration: 4 Jul 2020 → 7 Jul 2020 Conference number: 10 http://www.ewshm2020.com/ |
Publication series
Name | Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering |
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Publisher | Springer |
Volume | 127 |
Conference
Conference | European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring |
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Abbreviated title | EWSHM 2020 |
Country/Territory | Italy |
City | Palermo |
Period | 4/07/20 → 7/07/20 |
Internet address |
Keywords
- UAV
- inspection
- ultrasound
- structural health monitoring
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Dive into the research topics of 'Deployment of contact-based ultrasonic thickness measurements using over-actuated UAVs'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
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Industrial CASE Account - University of Strathclyde 2017 | Watson, Robert
MacLeod, C. N. (Principal Investigator), Pierce, G. (Co-investigator) & Watson, R. (Research Co-investigator)
EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
1/10/17 → 12/06/23
Project: Research Studentship Case - Internally allocated