Resonance inspection of manufactured parts with witness coupon testing
AssigneeVibrant Corporation
InventorsLeanne Jauriqui, Greg Weaver, Alexander J. Mayes
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Resonance inspection of parts in which a resonance standard to which a frequency response of the part is compared is at least in part based on a property derived from testing of a witness coupon that is manufactured concurrently with the part. This approach may allow properties of a material and/or manufacturing technique used to produce the part and witness coupon to inform the resonance standard to improve testing. Approaches are described related to both empirically derived resonance standards as well as model-based resonance standards.
Claims42
A method for performing a resonance inspection of a part, comprising:
- obtaining a witness coupon that is manufactured concurrently with a part to be tested, wherein the witness coupon and the part comprises a material from which the witness coupon and the part are both manufactured;
- testing the witness coupon to determine a property of the material;
- performing a resonance inspection of the part, the resonance inspection comprising exciting the part at a plurality of input frequencies and obtaining a frequency response of the part at each of the plurality of input frequencies;
- comparing the frequency response of the part to a resonance standard, wherein the resonance standard is at least in part based on the property of the material as determined by the testing of the witness coupon;
- and
- characterizing the part as acceptable or unacceptable based on the comparing.
A method for generating a resonance standard for evaluation of at least one part using a resonance inspection of the at least one part, comprising:
- modeling a part to be tested using a nominal specification for the part, wherein the modeling generates a computer-generated three-dimensional digital model of the part based on the nominal specification;
- receiving at least one property of a material from which the part is manufactured, wherein the property of the material is input to the digital model, and wherein the property of the material is determined from testing a witness coupon manufactured concurrently with the part;
- performing a finite element analysis on the digital model based on the property to generate a model resonance response of the part as manufactured from the digital model;
- and
- generating a resonance standard for the part based on the finite element analysis of the digital model.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.