Development of Ultrasonic Guided Wave Transducer for Monitoring of High Temperature Pipelines

High-temperature (HT) ultrasonic transducers are of increasing interest for structural health monitoring (SHM) of structures operating in harsh environments. This article focuses on the development of an HT piezoelectric wafer active sensor (HT-PWAS) for SHM of HT pipelines using ultrasonic guided waves. The PWAS was fabricated using Y-cut gallium phosphate (GaPO(4)) to produce a torsional guided wave mode on pipes operating at temperatures up to 600 °C. A number of confidence-building tests on the PWAS were carried out. HT electromechanical impedance (EMI) spectroscopy was performed to characterise piezoelectric properties at elevated temperatures and over long periods of time (>1000 h). Laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) was used to verify the modes of vibration. A finite element model of GaPO(4) PWAS was developed to model the electromechanical behaviour of the PWAS and the effect of increasing temperatures, and it was validated using EMI and LDV experimental data. This study demonstrates the application of GaPO(4) for guided-wave SHM of pipelines and presents a model that can be used to evaluate different transducer designs for HT applications.