Acoustic—RF multi-sensor material characterization system

Inventors

Portune, Andrew Richard • Keller, III, Walter John

Assignees

Nokomis Inc

Abstract

A system for determining properties and structural integrity of a material comprises a probe including a housing, a source operable to propagate an acoustic energy through a thickness of the material, a source operable to propagate a radio frequency (RF) energy through the thickness of the material, an acoustic member mounted within the housing and operable to measure a response of the material to the acoustic energy, and a radio frequency (RF) member mounted within the hollow interior in a close proximity to the acoustic member and operable to measure a response of the material to the RF energy. A hardware interface device is coupled to both acoustic and RF members. A controller is coupled to the hardware interface and configured to receive the acoustic and RF response signals and includes a processor operable to process the received acoustic and RF response signals.

Core Innovation

The invention relates to a system for determining properties and structural integrity of a material by using acoustic energy and radio frequency (RF) energy that propagate through the material thickness. A first probe includes a first housing with a hollow interior and mounts a source of acoustic energy and a source of RF energy within the hollow interior so both energies interact with the material through its thickness. A second probe includes a second housing with a hollow interior, where an acoustic member captures acoustic energy and generates an acoustic response signal, and an RF member captures RF energy and generates an RF response signal.

The system uses a receiver coupled to the first and second probes to receive the acoustic response signals and RF response signals, and a controller coupled to the receiver to process the received signals. The controller processes the acoustic and RF response signals to measure critical material properties while locating and identifying structural defects that degrade performance. This dual acoustic-and-RF approach supports characterizing defects and measuring properties using both modalities.

For multi-layer materials, the method emits acoustic and radiofrequency (RF) energy into the material and receives acoustic and RF response signals. The method characterizes internal and/or surface defects using the acoustic and RF response signals, determines the thickness of each individual layer, and determines a correction factor for electromagnetic field propagation. Using the correction factor, the method defines electromagnetic field interactions and extracts RF properties of each individual layer.

Claims Coverage

The document provides two independent claims, a system claim and a method claim. Across them, the main inventive features include dual-probe acoustic/RF propagation and response capture, controller-based processing for property measurement and defect localization/identification, and a multi-layer method that characterizes defects, determines layer thickness, computes an electromagnetic propagation correction factor, defines electromagnetic field interactions, and extracts RF properties by layer.

Claim coverage centers on a dual-probe acoustic/RF system where both modalities propagate through material thickness and are captured as corresponding response signals for controller processing to measure properties and identify defects. The multi-layer method further specifies characterization of internal/surface defects, determination of thickness per layer, computation of an electromagnetic field propagation correction factor, definition of electromagnetic field interactions, and extraction of RF properties for each individual layer.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications