Ultrasonic tomography systems
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorWolf-Dietrich Kleinert
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system including a segmented transducer probe is provided. The segmented transducer probe includes a plurality of transducer segments adapted to transmit ultrasonic excitation signals into a test specimen and to receive echo signals resulting from the interaction of the ultrasonic excitation signals and the test specimen. The system also includes a processing system adapted to receive data from the segmented transducer probe that corresponds to the received echo signals and to utilize tomographic reconstruction methods to reconstruct an image corresponding to at least one volumetric slice of the test specimen.
Claims20
A system, comprising:
- a segmented transducer probe comprising a plurality of transducer segments configured to transmit ultrasonic excitation signals into a test specimen and to receive echo signals resulting from an interaction of the ultrasonic excitation signals and the test specimen;
- and
- a processing system configured to receive data from the segmented transducer probe that corresponds to the received echo signals and to utilize a tomographic reconstruction method to reconstruct an image corresponding to at least one volumetric slice of the test specimen.
A system, comprising:
- a circular segmented transducer probe, comprising:
- an array of transducer segments circularly disposed about an inner diameter of the circular segmented transducer probe and comprising a plurality of opposite pairs of transducer segments;
- wherein the plurality of opposite pairs of transducer segments is configured to be activated to generate a rotatable, non-axial-symmetric sound field.
A method, comprising:
- transmitting a rotatable, non-axial-symmetric sound field to a test specimen;
- receiving echo signals resulting from an interaction between the rotatable, non-axial-symmetric sound field and the test specimen;
- and
- utilizing the received echo signals and a tomographic reconstruction method to reconstruct an image corresponding to at least one volumetric slice of the test specimen.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.