Building an Ultrasonic, Nondestructive Test System for the U.S. Army Using NI Modular Instruments and LabVIEW

Author(s):
Thomas Fina - FBS Inc.
Steven Owens - FBS Inc.

Industry:
Government/Defense

Products:
LabVIEW, Motion Control,

The Challenge:
Providing the U.S. Army with a method to rapidly and accurately inspect the breech sections of M1A1 Abrams tank guns for geometry defects and other degenerative flaws.

The Solution:
Creating the system based on an industrial Pentium 4 3 GHz processor with 768 MB RAM using National Instruments high-speed digitizers and motion control cards, and writing the software completely in the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment.

Adapting Ultrasonic, Nondestructive Pipe Testing to Gun Barrel Testing

FBS developed its core knowledge and technical expertise for ultrasonic testing and system integration in the pipeline inspection industry. In this field, FBS was the first North American company to apply ultrasonic guided waves to long-range pipeline inspection. Using this technology, FBS could inspect hundreds of feet of pipe from a single location. This includes underground pipe, tar-coated pipe, and product-filled pipe.   Because of the commercial success of this technology in the pipeline inspection industry, companies in other industries such as gun barrel inspection are adapting it to their applications.

The current U.S. military technology for gun barrel inspection is mainly limited to visual inspections. The U.S. Army rarely discards barrels because of visual defects but often disposes of them due to a mandated usage limit. Limiting the number of times a soldier can use a barrel without an effective manner to predict failure, coupled with the necessity for zero failures, results in the U.S. Army discarding many useable barrels. Because the replacement cost of each barrel is high, and the Department of Defense is implementing a total ownership reduction strategy, the U.S. Army needed a rapid and accurate barrel-testing system. The testing system had to:

• Slide the instrument in and out of the breech effortlessly
• Provide real-time feedback on breech conditions
• Detect defects in accordance with the condemnation criteria for 120 mm cannon chamber sections per TM 9-1000-202-14
• Adapt easily for bore inspection of several bore sizes

FBS applied its ultrasonic guided wave pipe inspection expertise to the challenge of inspecting gun barrels from M1A1 Abrams tanks.

Designing an Instrumentation System for Automated Breech Inspection

We developed an instrumentation system to quickly and accurately inspect the breech sections of M1A1 Abrams tank guns. We designed the instrumentation system to be inserted into the chamber region and perform an automated breech inspection. The device inspects the full length of the breech by translating sensors along the barrel axis. The advantages of this system include reduced error risk, quicker inspection speeds, detailed defect-depth information, and detection of subsurface defects. The U.S. Army readily can adapt the technology developed thus far to inspect breech and smooth bore sections of any geometry. Using this system, relatively untrained technicians can accurately detect threatening defects while saving money by extending the life of an average barrel. The prototype system built for the U.S. Army is called BLASST (BarreL ASSessment Technology). In the future, the U.S. Army can apply this type of inspection technology to other military guns.

We built the system based on an industrial Pentium 4 3 GHz with 768 MB RAM and the following data acquisition and control devices:

• NI PCI-5102 dual-channel, 15 MHz, 20 MS/s 8-bit digitizer
• NI PCI-7334 motion controller
• TB-1000 Matec toneburst pulser/receiver
• PC Instruments 8x1 multiplexer

We connected the devices to an array of ultrasonic transducers positioned around the barrel circumference. In addition, we wrote the software completely in National Instruments LabVIEW. The main design elements included:

• Intuitive design -- Any technician can identify flaws.
• Modular code -- We can reuse pieces of the code for any similar projects.
• Compatibility -- We can interface software with several pulser/receivers, digitizers, motion controllers, and switches.
• Integrated signal processing -- Technicians can take advantage of filtering, averaging, and advanced processing.
• Data storage --Technicians can save data to disk.
• Real-time analysis -- Technicians can make real-time determinations on the viability of a barrel.

Saving Time and Money with FBS Expertise and NI Tools

Using NI software and hardware, we successfully created a system to inspect M1A1 Abrams tank gun barrels with guided wave ultrasonics. LabVIEW provided the necessary connectivity to several devices, including a third-party pulser/receiver and switch. The NI high-speed digitizer gave us the performance and interoperability necessary to complete the application. Finally, NI test and measurement tools coupled with guided wave ultrasonic inspection expertise from FBS Inc. kept development time short and costs low, as well as satisfied all U.S. Army system requirements.

For more information, contact:

Steven Owens

Director of Engineering

FBS Inc.

2134 Sandy Drive

State College, PA 16803

Tel: (814) 234-3437

Fax: (814) 234-3457

E-mail: sowens@fbsworldwide.com

 

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