Method and apparatus for determining material fatigue by measuring damping factors

Abstract

The fatigue integrity of metallic materials may be determined by either one of two methods. In a first method, an impulse of energy is introduced into the metallic material, such as by striking the metallic material, and the induced vibration is sensed and analyzed in order to compute the damping factor thereof, the damping factor being directly related to the fatigue thereof. With this method, a transducer is coupled to the metallic material and its output is amplified by an amplifier before input to a computer which determines the damping factor. In a second method, a continuous energy input is provided to the metallic material, such as by utilizing a frequency generator coupled to a power amplifier whose output drives a transducer such as a speaker or the like for inducing a continuous vibration in the metallic material. This continuous vibration is measured with a transducer, an amplifier, and a damping factor calculated with a computer as in the first method.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.