Bernhard R. Tittmann, Schell Professor, will present a paper titled "Some Novel Ultrasonic Sensors for Health Monitoring of Pressure Vessels: A Survey" at the NDE Research and Applications Session of the 2007 ASME Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference and The Eighth International Conference on Creep and Fatigue at Elevated Temperatures Conference to be held in San Antonio, Texas, July 23- 26, 2007. An abstract of the paper follows below.


Pressure vessels are potentially dangerous in that when not properly monitored can lead to catastrophic failure. This report surveys some novel ultrasonic sensor techniques for monitoring the health of pressure vessels. They range for example, from non-invasive acoustic gas pressure measurement, to ultrasonic position indication, to fluid level detection, to guided wave flaw detection. Each technique will be described in terms of its physical principle, simulation calculations and acquired sample data. The techniques will be compared in terms of ease of use, of limitations, such as high temperature, and of environmental noise interference.