Process for ultrasonic testing of tubular goods

In a system for ultrasonic testing of non-rotating tubular goods utilizing a test head in surround of said longitudinally moving tubular goods, said test head having plural circumferential arrays of transverse and longitudinal transducers as driven by a selected pulser with return energy applied through a selected pre-amplifier, plural wall thickness transducers with pulsers and pre-amplifiers, a multi-conductor control cable leading to plural receiver channels, with respective plural gate circuits and plural average counters which generate output indications, said channels processing respective transverse, longitudinal and wall thickness defects, the system being controlled by a microprocessor with resident program to perform the method comprising:

• pulsing selected transverse transducers sequentially and detecting and pre-amplifying any return signal for conduction to a first receiver channel;
• pulsing selected longitudinal transducers sequentially and detecting and pre-amplifying any return signal for conduction to a second receiver channel;
• generating a gate duration after each pulsing during which return signal is received from said first and second receiver channels to generate a gated return signal;
• and
• counting outputs indicative of gated return signal in said first and second channels to generate a defect output indication upon registering a preset count for the respective channel.

A method for ultrasonic defect testing of tubular goods using an automated sequence control processor comprising the steps of:

• (a) selecting at least one transducer, within an array of plural transverse, longitudinal and wall thickness oriented transducers, for pulsing and pre-amplification of any defect return energy signal;
• (b) simultaneously enabling a signal channel and receiver input to receive said return energy signal and provide a defect signal;
• (c) gate processing said defect signal to provide an output flaw signal if the defect signal occurs within a pre-selected time duration after pulsing of the respective transducer;
• (d) repeating steps (a)-(c) for all transverse transducers and applying any gate output flaw signals to an averaging counter to provide a flaw indication signal output upon attaining a pre-set count;
• (e) repeating steps (a)-(c) for all longitudinal transducers and applying any gate output flaw signals to an averaging counter to provide a flaw indication signal output upon attaining a pre-set count;
• (f) repeating steps (a)-(c) for all thickness transducers and applying any gate output flaw signals to an averaging counter to provide a flaw indication signal output upon attaining a pre-set count;
• and
• (g) displaying the flaw indication signal outputs for each of the transverse, longitudinal and wall thickness modes of operation.