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Measurement of wave velocity in materials is very important.It has applications in ultrasonic thickness gauging as well as estimating the elastic constants of materials. In this paper, it is intended to improve the accuracy of wave velocity measurements by signal processing techniques. For this purpose, the SAGE algorithm, which is a model-based estimation technique, is implemented. Using SAGE, the overlapping echoes are separated and consequently the time-delay between these echoes is estimated more accurately. The signal processing scheme reduces the adverse effects of noise too. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique, an AISI 4140 steel block with four steps of thicknesses 10, 15, 20, and 25 mm was tested by the immersion ultrasonic testing technique. The time-delaybetween echoes obtained from each step was measured fifty times and by averaging these measurements, the actual time-delay and its uncertainty were estimated. The thickness of the block at each step was also measured by a micrometer. Using the time-delay and thickness data, the wave velocity and its uncertainty were estimated for each of the four thicknesses. The results shows that this technique can reduce the uncertainty of wave velocity measurements significantly.

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The echoes obtained from ultrasonic testing of materials contain valuable information about the geometry and grain structure of the test specimen. These echoes can be modeled by Gaussian pulses in a model-based estimation process. For precise modeling of an echo, the parameters of the Gaussian pulse should be estimated as accurately as possible. There are a number of algorithms that can be used for this purpose. In this study, three different algorithms are used: Gauss-Newton (GN), particle swarm optimization (PSO), and genetic algorithm (GA). The pros and cons of each of these three algorithms are reviewed and by combining them, the benefits of each algorithm are used while its shortcomings are avoided. For signals containing multiple echoes, the minimum description length (MDL) principle is used to estimate the numbers of required Gaussian echoes followed by space alternating generalized expectation maximization (SAGE) technique to translate it to separate echoes and to estimate the parameters of each echo. The performance of the proposed algorithms for simulated and experimental signals with overlapping and non-overlapping echoes is evaluated and shows to be quite effective.

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Ultrasonic nondestructive testing is a powerful tool for detection of defects as well as characterization of various properties of materials. In ultrasonic testing, it is very important to know the exact wave velocity in the material because most measurements somehow depend on wave velocity. Many other characteristics of materials such as elastic constants also depend on wave velocity. While variations of wave velocity in ambient temperatures is very small, these variations could be noticeable at high temperatures. In this paper, a simple and innovative experimental method is proposed for measurement of ultrasonic wave velocities at high temperatures. To keep the ultrasonic probe far from the hot sample, a special waveguide is designed. The wave velocity measurements are performed by pulse-echo ultrasonic testing technique and variations of ultrasonic wave velocities at temperatures ranging from 40oC to 160oC are investigated. It is observed that the velocity of ultrasonic waves decrease with increase in temperature. Experimental results are compared with theory and measurement uncertainties are calculated. These uncertainties are ±0.01 m/s and ±0.003 m/s for longitudinal and transverse wave velocities, respectively. The theoretical and experimental results agree very well.