In this study, we design a guided wave inspection system that can be used to detect the failed tubes in a tube bundle structure (e.g., heat exchanger) where the gap between the tubes is considerably narrow. The gap between the tubes is set as 1.5 mm i...
In this study, we design a guided wave inspection system that can be used to detect the failed tubes in a tube bundle structure (e.g., heat exchanger) where the gap between the tubes is considerably narrow. The gap between the tubes is set as 1.5 mm in the experiment. Thus, we design the thickness of the strip with a transducer to be 1 mm so that it can pass through the gap for the failure detection. As a result the propagation mode in the underwater environment is F mode. It is confirmed that the signal amplitude obtained from the water-filled tube specimen is smaller than that from the air-filled one. This shows a strong possibility of using the developed method for the purpose of the present study. It is expected that a reliable system for the failure detection of a tube bundle with a narrow gap can be built through further works such as and precise signal analysis.