Method to grain inspect directionally solidified castings
AssigneeUnited Technologies Corporation
InventorsHoward B. Jones, John H. Bluege
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for detecting defects in metallic parts, comprising the steps of providing a metallic surface comprising a repeating microstructure and at least one surface defect, redirecting an incident light beam off of an area of the metallic surface comprising the at least one surface defect thereby forming a redirected light beam, observing the redirected light beam, detecting at least a portion of the redirected light beam resulting from redirection off of the at least one surface defect.
Claims26
A method for detecting an existence of a surface defect in a metallic part comprising the steps of:
- providing a metallic part having a normal grain structure for examination;
- visually determining if there is a defect in a surface of said metallic part, which surface defect has a grain structure oriented differently than the normal grain structure;
- and
- said visual defect determining step comprising, generating a light beam of appropriate wavelength, redirecting the light beam of appropriate wavelength off of a surface of said metallic part and determining the existence of any difference between a first light scattering property created by the differently oriented grain structure in the surface defect and a second light scattering property created by a surrounding normal grain structure.
A system for detecting an existence of a surface defect in a metallic turbine engine part having a normal grain structure, said system comprising:
- means for visually determining if there is a defect in a surface of said metallic turbine engine part, which surface defect has a grain structure oriented differently than the normal grain structure;
- and
- said visual defect determining means comprising means for generating a light beam of appropriate wavelength and for redirecting the light beam of appropriate wavelength off of a surface of said metallic turbine engine part and means for determining the existence of any difference between a first light scattering property created by the differently oriented grain structure in the surface defect and a second light scattering property created by a surrounding normal grain structure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.