A New Nondestructive Technique for Measuring Pressure in Vessels by Surface Waves

Thin-walled pressure vessels are widely used in modern industry. It is important to measure pressure of the vessels. It has been proved that the velocity of ultrasonic propagation in the material could be affected by the stresses applied to it. The pressure measurement should consider the effect of temperature as the velocity of ultrasonic is affected by the temperature and themro-stress is produced in the vessels wall. Furthermore, the propagation distance of ultrasonic is influenced by thermal deformation due to temperature changes. In consideration of these influencing factors, a modified model of pressure measurement has been developed, and according to this model, a reference method for the temperature compensation is presented. The relationship between the time delay and pressure was established through this method. The correlative time estimation method based on Hilbert-Huang Transform is presented to estimate the time delay. Therefore, a new method for measuring the pressure of thin-walled vessels nondestructively is presented. Two vessels made of different kinds of materials were used as specimens in our experiments. The results obtain from the tests are used to validate the modified model and demonstrate that the reference method is effective.