Simplified direct-reading porosity measurement apparatus and method

An apparatus for measuring porosity of a structure, comprising:

• an ultrasonic transducer device configured to be pressed against a structure, the structure having a front surface and a back surface, the ultrasonic transducer device being further configured to emit ultrasonic pulses into the structure through the front surface and detect echo profiles;
• and
• an electronic device including:
• a manager having an interface gate adapted to cover a front surface ultrasonic pulse entering the front surface of the structure, a back-surface sensing gate adapted to cover an interval from beyond the front surface of the structure to an end point far out in time, a back surface analysis gate adapted to center over the back surface of the structure and define limits of a fast fourier transformation signal capture, a fast fourier transformation function adapted to perform a fast fourier transformation of the back surface signal captured by the back surface analysis gate, and a frequency-bandwidth discriminator adapted to isolate a frequency bandwidth in a back surface echo signal captured by the back surface analysis gate and measuring a reference amplitude of the frequency bandwidth;
• a pulse generator interfacing with the manager and the ultrasonic transducer device;
• a data acquisition device interfacing with the ultrasonic transducer device and the manager;
• and
• a display having a porosity indicator interfacing with the manager.

A porosity measurement method, comprising:

• selecting a structure to be measured;
• transmitting an ultrasonic signal into the structure;
• receiving an ultrasonic signal response from the structure;
• filtering the ultrasonic response;
• obtaining a reference amplitude for the structure to be measured based on the ultrasonic response;
• obtaining at least one amplitude variation of the ultrasonic signal response for the structure to be measured;
• measuring attenuation of the ultrasonic signal by comparing the amplitude variation of the structure to be measured with the reference amplitude;
• and
• calculating a porosity level of the structure based on the measured attenuation of the ultrasonic signal.