title: Pitfalls in the experimental recording of ultrasonic (backscatter) polar scans for material characterization.
abstract: The ultrasonic polar scan (UPS), either in transmission, reflection or backscatter mode, is a promising non-destructive testing technique for the characterization of composites, providing information about the mechanical anisotropy, the viscoelastic damping, the surface roughness, and more. At present, the technique is merely being used for qualitative purposes. The limited quantitative exploration and use of the technique can be primarily ascribed to limitations of current theoretical models as well as the difficulty to perform accurate, and more importantly, reproducible UPS experiments. Over the last years, we have identified several potential pitfalls in the experimental implementation of the technique which severely deteriorate the accurateness and reproducibility of a UPS. In this paper, we make an inventory of the most important difficulties, illustrate each of them by a real experiment and present a feasible mediation, either numerical or experimental in nature. Once the experimental set-up is fine-tuned to overcome these pitfalls, it is expected that the recording of high-level UPS experiments, in combination with numerical computations, will facilitate the technique to become a fully quantitative non-destructive characterization method.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ghent University, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 903, 9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium. Electronic address: Mathias.Kersemans@UGent.be.
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kersemans
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ghent University, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 903, 9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium.
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Van Paepegem
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Catholic University of Leuven Campus Kortrijk - KULAK, Etienne-Sabbelaan 52, 8500 Kortrijk, Belgium.
authors.forename: Koen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Van Den Abeele
authors.affiliation: Department Mechanics of Materials and Construction, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1500 Brussel, Belgium.
authors.forename: Lincy
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pyl
authors.affiliation: Department Mechanics of Materials and Construction, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1500 Brussel, Belgium.
authors.forename: Filip
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zastavnik
authors.affiliation: Department Mechanics of Materials and Construction, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1500 Brussel, Belgium.
authors.forename: Hugo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sol
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ghent University, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 903, 9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium.
authors.forename: Joris
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Degrieck
keywords: Experimental pitfalls; Material characterization; NDT; Ultrasonic (backscatter) polar scan