An inspection apparatus inspects a pressure vessel using laser ultrasound. The apparatus includes an oscillation device that oscillates an excitation laser for exciting the pressure vessel and a conduit to guide the excitation laser oscillated from the oscillation device to inside the pressure vessel. The conduit is inserted into the pressure vessel with one conduit end located inside the pressure vessel and an opposite end located outside the pressure vessel. The apparatus includes a reflector at one conduit end inside the pressure vessel to reflect the excitation laser guided by the conduit and a detector that detects ultrasonic waves generated in the pressure vessel by the excitation laser reflected by the reflector by oscillating a receiving laser from outside of the pressure vessel. At least the conduit, reflector, or detector moves to correct an optical path of the excitation laser or the receiving laser.

A compressed fluid source assembly may comprise: a pressure cylinder configured to receive a compressed fluid source therein; and a surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor coupled to an external surface of the pressure cylinder.

A system and methods for defect detection and characterization in plate-like structures, more particularly to detect corrosion in complex plate-like structures that result in a deviation in thickness in at least a patch of the structure. The system comprises a plurality of transducers configured to be adjacent to at least a portion of a plate-like structure. A controller is coupled to the plurality of transducers. The method includes propagation of guided waves through the plate-like structure and capture of data to detect the presence of at least one defect using at least a pair of transmitting/receiving transducers based on a change in the velocity of wave transmission as compared to the velocity predicted for a pristine structure. The method also includes estimated localization, and estimation in size and change in thickness of one or more patches using at least four discrete wave transmission paths that traverse the defect by using optimization of a proposed error function to estimate based on distributed circles using a derivative free optimization based algorithm.

Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for tagging and acoustically characterizing containers.

An apparatus for inspecting filled containers for foreign bodies that may be contained therein, where the filled container is mechanically excited by vibration or rotation so as to cause the possibly existing foreign bodies to rotate. The acoustic signals produced by the foreign bodies impacting on the inner wall of the container are detected and analyzed. Any signal detection is separated from mechanical excitation, and mechanical excitation is separated from container transport in that the signal-detecting sensor is applied to the container only after the end of the mechanical excitation. The mechanical excitation is executed by an excitation element that is brought into contact with the container independently of the holding elements used for the purpose of transport.

Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for tagging and acoustically characterizing containers.

In one aspect, a screening tool for detecting whether a predetermined type of liquid is contained in a container includes a sensor arm subsystem in communication with a processing subsystem. The processing subsystem includes a processor disposed in a housing, an AC/DC converter electrically coupled to the processor, and ultrasonic components electrically coupled to the processor and the AC/DC converter. The sensor arm subsystem includes a sensor electrically coupled to the ultrasonic components, a temperature sensor electrically coupled to the processor, and an operator interface electrically couple to the processor.

The present invention relates to a diagnostic system (103) for determining a state of a pressurized gas tank (101) made of fiber-reinforced plastic.

The diagnostic system (103) comprises an excitation element (105), a sensor (109) and an evaluation unit (113), wherein the excitation element (105) is configured to introduce sound waves into the pressurized gas tank (101), wherein the sensor (109) is configured to sense sound waves conducted into the pressurized gas tank (101) by the excitation element (105), and wherein the evaluation unit (113) is configured to associate respective measured values determined by the sensor (109) with a characteristic value, describing a state of the pressurized gas tank (101) and outputting the associated characteristic on an output unit.

A high-pressure tank is detected to rupture before the rupture of the tank with high accuracy. The pressure when the indicator obtained based on measured acoustic emission or sound is at least a threshold value is defined as a pressure just before a rupture.

The present application relates to a liquid transfer system capable of using ultrasonic sound signals to transfer liquid samples from a first container to a second container as well as using ultrasonic sound signals to measure the characteristics of both the liquid and the first container. The system uses a transducer to transmit a plurality of sound signals and receives a plurality signals reflected off the sample and the bottom wall of the container to measure the liquid and/or container characteristics. The plurality of transmitted sound signals occur during a plurality of transducer positions from the first container in which the system identifies the signal converging on various surfaces of the liquid and/or container, and uses the reflected signals corresponding to those positions to calculate the sample and container characteristics.