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Phased-Arrays sensors and systems provide a great flexibility to UT inspectors, as the ultrasonic beam can be adjusted thanks to electronic set-up to increase performances (for detection or sizing) in different situations while using the same probe. For instance, the delay laws enable to steer the beam at different angles (sector scan technique) and/or focus the beam at different depths.

However, ultrasounds remain ultrasounds!

One key rule of acoustics is that you cannot focus beyond the near field distance (governed by the wavelength, frequency and crystal aperture)… And this remains absolutely true with phased-array sensors!

Rather than long explanations and mathematical formulas, let’s use CIVA simulations to illustrate this!

Above, you can see the sound field sector scan coverage generated in a carbon steel block by a linear PA UT probe of 2MHz and 26 mm aperture. The first beam chart on the top left illustrates a sector scan (30° to 60°) without any depth focusing, the max is around 50mm depth corresponding to the natural focal spot, which corresponds to the limit of the near field. Several focal laws are then successively applied to change the focal depth from 30 mm to 120 mm while keeping the same angular scanning. These focal laws lead to a geometrical focusing of the beam illustrated by the white cross, but as you can observe on the 3rd case, and above all the last case, the actual focus cannot be deeper compared to the geometrical “specification”.

It just takes a few minutes to illustrate this with CIVA, and can avoid many misunderstandings and misuse of PA UT probes and systems!

Feel free to contact us if you need more information about ultrasonic testing with CIVA.

The EXTENDE team.

On August 8^th, 2011, EXTENDE Inc. opened for business in the U.S.A., supporting our customers in the U.S.A. and Canada. At that time, EXTENDE Inc. was located in Ballston Spa, NY, U.S.A.. EXTENDE S.A. had one office in Orsay, France and the entire EXTENDE team was just 9 people. Now there are 15 people on the EXTENDE team, with 3 offices in France, and a relocation of the EXTENDE Inc. office to Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.A., putting us much closer to our customers in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

In 2011, our only product was CIVA (UT, ET and RT modules), and our services were limited to training and simulation-based consulting. Ten years later, CIVA has continued to evolve, and additional modules have been released (CT, GWT, SHM, Script), new CIVA based products have been created including CIVA Education (UT, ET and RT) and CIVA UT Analysis. More recently, EXTENDE has released its first two training simulators, TraiNDE UT and TraiNDE RT, designed to revolutionize the way hands-on NDT is taught. Of course, we are more than ever available for simulation-based consulting and training classes.

Contributing to the NDT community in the U.S.A. and Canada, EXTENDE Inc. V.P. Erica Schumacher regularly supports key NDT conferences in this region via exhibits, presentations and occasionally conference sponsorship. At the 2019 CINDE annual conference, EXTENDE was one of a few companies honored with the 2019 NDT in Canada Exhibitor Appreciation Award.

Our 10^th year of business started in the middle of a world-wide pandemic that led to changes in the way we all do business. Training classes that have always been taught in person have since been taught virtually, while the one in-person class taught last year included a student attending remotely from another location. Interest increased in our education software CIVA Education as NDT instructors looked for more engaging ways to teach the physics of NDT remotely. While some of us already worked from home, many others did so for the first time. All of us had lots of opportunities to use web meeting technologies and hone our skills at virtual meetings and presentations.

Looking to the future, we see our business in North America growing, and our presence there growing to meet the increasing demand for our products and services. One thing that will remain the same is our commitment to work together with our customers to help make the world a safer place.

The EXTENDE team.