A Fast Finite Element Simulation Method of Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing and Its Application in Sleeve Fillet Weld Inspection

Numerical simulation can provide quantitative information on ultrasonic beam propagation and plays an important role in analyzing its detection ability and in optimizing the corresponding parameters of the phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT). In this paper, a fast finite element simulation method of PAUT is developed using an improved explicit integration algorithm and a non-zero element compressed storage method. The new method is applied for the simulation of PAUT of a type-B sleeve weld, and compared with the commercial finite element software and experiment results. We found that the computation time and memory consumption of the new method is only about a 15th and a 40th of the commercial finite element software, respectively.