Fast Ultrasonic Imaging in a Liquid Filled Pipe

A new method is described for the imaging of the interior of a liquid filled metallic pipe using acoustical techniques. The experimental system incorporates an array of 20 acoustical transducers and is capable of capturing the images of moving bubbles at a frame rate in excess of 300/s. The transducers are mounted circumferentially around the pipe. Each transducer is pulsed in sequence, and the echoes reflected from vapor bubbles in the interior are detected, digitized and processed by a computer to generate an image. The high rate of speed was achieved by the use of newly developed software and electronic circuitry. This approach has eliminated most of the spurious echo signals which degraded the performance of previous imaging systems. The capability of the method is illustrated by imaging actual vapor bubbles in rapid sequence in the pipe.