Complete Inspection of Friction Stir Welds in Aluminum using Ultrasonic and Eddy Current Arrays

Ultrasonic phased-array offers tremendous advantages for the inspection of Friction stir welds (FSW), a new method of joining metals using a solid state bonding process. Phased array ultrasonics can reliably detect all internal volumetric defects in FSW, such as cracks, inclusion, porosity and lack-of-penetration. Spot-focused beams improve detection, inspection angles can be optimized electronically and electronic scan of the beam normal to the welds gives rapid one-line scan inspection to assure full coverage. Furthermore, a technique using ultrasonic attenuation measurements shows the presence or absence of conditions for forming kissing bonds (or entrapped oxide defects). Also, eddy current arrays can be used for surface inspection, and can help to detect tight kissing bonds. Using all three approaches, the overall detection capability of kissing bonds is high.