Ultrasonic scattering from a hemispherical pit theory and experimental measurement precision

The accuracy and precision of pulse-echo ultrasonic thickness measurement systems are influenced by systematic and environmental factors including the topographic profile of the back-wall surface. For the case of thickness measurement from the outside surface of a pipe, the back-wall surface can vary in roughness as a result of internal corrosion. A single corrosive pit can be geometrically represented by a hemisphere in a half-space to model the initiation point of rough surface corrosion, or to model isolated pitting degradation as is possible with naphthenic acid corrosion in oil refineries. The elastic wave scattering from a single hemispherical pit has been studied in the Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) community, as well as scattering from a hemispherical canyon in the seismology community for various incident and reflected wave angles, modes, and frequency ranges with both analytical and discretized numerical methods. This paper looks to first review recent scattering theory (developed in the seismology community) on a full frequency range analytical solution for a normal incident longitudinal wave at a normal reflection angle from a hemispherical canyon, and then extend this theory to NDE applications with the introduction of a new far-field scattering amplitude term. Next, a selection of new theoretical scattering amplitude solutions are presented along with semi-analytical simulation and experimental measurement results. Finally, a statistical methodology to determine thickness measurement accuracy and precision taking into consideration asymmetric measurement uncertainty is referenced.The accuracy and precision of pulse-echo ultrasonic thickness measurement systems are influenced by systematic and environmental factors including the topographic profile of the back-wall surface. For the case of thickness measurement from the outside surface of a pipe, the back-wall surface can vary in roughness as a result of internal corrosion. A single corrosive pit can be geometrically represented by a hemisphere in a half-space to model the initiation point of rough surface corrosion, or to model isolated pitting degradation as is possible with naphthenic acid corrosion in oil refineries. The elastic wave scattering from a single hemispherical pit has been studied in the Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) community, as well as scattering from a hemispherical canyon in the seismology community for various incident and reflected wave angles, modes, and frequency ranges with both analytical and discretized numerical methods. This paper looks to first review recent scattering theory (developed in the seis...