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Advancements in Ultrasonic Testing for Metallurgical Materials
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Advancements in Ultrasonic Testing for Metallurgical Materials

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Metals and Alloys".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 September 2025 | Viewed by 3651

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Li Kai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Precision Manufacturing for Extreme Service Performance, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Interests: ultrafast laser micro/nano processing; intelligent monitoring; nanomaterials; laser welding
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Xianshi Jia

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Precision Manufacturing for Extreme Service Performance, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Interests: ultrafast laser micro/nano processing; nanomaterials; laser welding; laser ablation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue on “Advancements in Ultrasonic Testing for Metallurgical Materials” aims to bring together cutting-edge research and innovative developments in the application of ultrasonic testing (UT) within the field of metallurgy. As UT techniques continue to evolve, they are increasingly critical for assessing the microstructural integrity, detecting flaws, and evaluating mechanical properties of metals and alloys. This issue seeks contributions that explore novel UT methodologies, improvements in signal processing, and advancements in non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technologies. We also encourage submissions that address the challenges of testing in extreme environments, the characterization of complex materials, and the integration of UT with other NDE techniques. By showcasing these advancements, the special issue will provide a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners looking to enhance the reliability and accuracy of ultrasonic testing in metallurgical applications.

Dr. Li Kai
Dr. Xianshi Jia
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • ultrasonic testing (UT) 
  • non-destructive evaluation (NDE)
  • metallurgical materials 
  • microstructural analysis 
  • signal processing 
  • flaw detection
  • intelligent detection

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2152 KiB  
Article
Insulator Defect Detection via a Residual Denoising Diffusion Mechanism
by Li Zhang, Mengyang Song, Huaping Guo, Yange Sun and Xinxia Wang
Materials 2025, 18(8), 1738; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18081738 - 10 Apr 2025
Viewed by 285
Abstract
Insulators are critical components of transmission lines, and defective insulators pose a serious threat to the safety of power supply systems. Timely detection of these defects is crucial to prevent catastrophic consequences for human lives and property. However, insulator defects are often small [...] Read more.
Insulators are critical components of transmission lines, and defective insulators pose a serious threat to the safety of power supply systems. Timely detection of these defects is crucial to prevent catastrophic consequences for human lives and property. However, insulator defects are often small and easily affected by the noise of rain, fog, sunlight, dirt, and other pollutants, making detection challenging. We observe that diffusion models learn data distribution by progressively introducing noise and subsequently performing denoising. The progressive denoising mechanism can naturally simulate the randomness of environmental noise. Based on this observation, we treat the localization of insulator defects as a denoising-based recovery process, where the true defect bounding boxes are progressively reconstructed from noisy representations. To this end, we propose a novel diffusion-based Insulator Defect Detector (IDDet) that is specifically designed to handle complex environmental noise. IDDet introduces noise to the true bounding boxes to generate noisy target boxes with random distributions and is then trained to recover the true bounding boxes from these noisy representations through a residual denoising diffusion mechanism. For the inference stage, IDDet refines the defect location from a random noise bounding box by gradually removing the noise, ultimately achieving the task of precisely locating the defect in the image. Experimental results show that IDDet significantly improves detection capability in noisy environments, achieving the best mean average precision (mAP) of 92.3%, confirming the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements in Ultrasonic Testing for Metallurgical Materials)
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14 pages, 5580 KiB  
Article
Burst Ultrafast Laser Welding of Quartz Glass
by Xianshi Jia, Yinzhi Fu, Kai Li, Chengaonan Wang, Zhou Li, Cong Wang and Ji’an Duan
Materials 2025, 18(5), 1169; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18051169 - 6 Mar 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 623
Abstract
Ultrafast laser welding of transparent materials has been widely used in sensors, microfluidics, optics, etc. However, the existing ultrafast laser welding depths are limited by the short laser Rayleigh length, which makes it difficult to realize the joining of transparent materials in the [...] Read more.
Ultrafast laser welding of transparent materials has been widely used in sensors, microfluidics, optics, etc. However, the existing ultrafast laser welding depths are limited by the short laser Rayleigh length, which makes it difficult to realize the joining of transparent materials in the millimeter depth range and becomes a new challenge. Based on temporal shaping, we realized Burst mode ultrafast laser output with different sub-pulse numbers and explored the effect of different Burst modes on the welding performance using high-speed shadow in situ imaging. The experimental results show that the Burst mode femtosecond laser (twelve sub-pulses with a total energy of 28.9 μJ) of 238 fs, 1035 nm and 1000 kHz can form a molten structure with a maximum depth of 5 mm inside the quartz, and the welding strength can be higher than 18.18 MPa. In this context, we analyzed the transient process of forming teardrop molten structures inside transparent materials using high-speed shadow in situ imaging detection and systematically analyzed the fracture behavior of the samples. In addition, we further reveal the Burst femtosecond laser welding mechanism of transparent materials comprehensively by exploring the difference in welding performance under the effect of Burst modes with different sub-pulse numbers. This paper is the first to realize molten structures in the range of up to 5 mm, which is expected to provide a new welding method for curved surfaces and large-size transparent materials, helping to improve the packaging strength of photoelectric devices and the window strength of aerospace materials. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements in Ultrasonic Testing for Metallurgical Materials)
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20 pages, 16271 KiB  
Article
Nonlinear Ultrasonic Characterization of Processing Defects in Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing 316L Stainless Steel
by Pengfei Wang, Jia Zeng, Dong Lou, Wenjian Zheng, Sanlong Zheng, Bingbing Chen and Zengliang Gao
Materials 2025, 18(4), 805; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18040805 - 12 Feb 2025
Viewed by 550
Abstract
Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) 316L stainless steel unavoidably introduces defects such as porosity, oxide inclusions, and lack of fusion due to the inherent characteristics of the process. These defects can significantly affect the mechanical properties and service reliability of the material. This [...] Read more.
Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) 316L stainless steel unavoidably introduces defects such as porosity, oxide inclusions, and lack of fusion due to the inherent characteristics of the process. These defects can significantly affect the mechanical properties and service reliability of the material. This study focused on evaluating the defects in WAAM 316L stainless steel by nonlinear ultrasonic testing based on Lamb waves. The effects of FCAW (flux cored arc welding) parameters, including shielding gases (98% Ar + 2% O2 and 100% CO2) and welding speeds (20, 30, and 40 cm/min), on the columnar grain, porosity, and defect types were systematically analyzed. The formed specimens were then subjected to nonlinear ultrasonic testing, and the results showed that the ultrasonic nonlinear parameters exhibited high sensitivity to changes in porosity. This suggests that nonlinear ultrasonic testing can effectively assess processing defects in WAAM 316L stainless steel. The findings provide valuable insights for optimizing the WAAM process and improving the reliability of additive manufacturing components. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements in Ultrasonic Testing for Metallurgical Materials)
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12 pages, 5961 KiB  
Article
In Situ Ultrasonic Characterization of Hydrogen Damage Evolution in X80 Pipeline Steel
by Bing Chen, Feifei Qiu, Li Xia, Lintao Xu, Junjun Jin and Guoqing Gou
Materials 2024, 17(23), 5891; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17235891 - 1 Dec 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 752
Abstract
A nondestructive evaluation of the hydrogen damage of materials in a hydrogen environment is important for monitoring the running conditions of various pieces of equipment. In this work, a new thermostatic electrolytic hydrogenation in situ ultrasonic test system (In Situ TEH-UT) was developed. [...] Read more.
A nondestructive evaluation of the hydrogen damage of materials in a hydrogen environment is important for monitoring the running conditions of various pieces of equipment. In this work, a new thermostatic electrolytic hydrogenation in situ ultrasonic test system (In Situ TEH-UT) was developed. The system operates by combining cross-correlation delay estimation and frequency domain amplitude estimation and hence improves measurement accuracy with respect to ultrasonic propagation time and amplitude, allowing in situ ultrasonic evaluation of the hydrogen-charging process in X80 pipeline steel. The experimental results show that under a 30 mA/cm2 hydrogen-charging current, the hydrogen saturation time of X80 pipeline steel is 800 min. Between 0 and 800 min, the attenuation coefficient and amplitude attenuation both demonstrate a strong linear relationship with the hydrogen-charging time. After 800 min, the attenuation coefficient and amplitude attenuation do not change further, while the attenuation coefficient fluctuates greatly. Through the characterization of the microstructures of the materials analyzed, it was found that hydrogen-induced cracks (HICs) constituted the main reason for the change in the ultrasonic parameters, and the mechanism behind the hydrogen-induced damage layer (HIDL) was determined. This study provides reference significance for clarifying the change mechanism of ultrasonic parameters under hydrogen damage conditions and determining the extent of hydrogen damage using an ultrasonic technique. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements in Ultrasonic Testing for Metallurgical Materials)
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19 pages, 4830 KiB  
Article
Research on the Measurement Technology for Pretension Stress on Small-Sized Bolts Based on the Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Resonance Method
by Bing Chen, Chunlang Luo, Li Xia, Lintao Xu, Guanglong Yan, Feifei Qiu and Guoqing Gou
Materials 2024, 17(23), 5802; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17235802 - 26 Nov 2024
Viewed by 985
Abstract
With the widespread application of small-sized bolts in aerospace and other fields, the demand for measuring their connection structures is increasing. Currently, although ultrasonic longitudinal wave methods are commonly used for bolt pretension stress measurement, their accuracy is limited for small-sized bolts. This [...] Read more.
With the widespread application of small-sized bolts in aerospace and other fields, the demand for measuring their connection structures is increasing. Currently, although ultrasonic longitudinal wave methods are commonly used for bolt pretension stress measurement, their accuracy is limited for small-sized bolts. This paper proposes a piezoelectric acoustic resonance method (PZTAR) for small-sized bolt pretension stress measurement based on acoustic elasticity theory, ultrasonic resonance principles, and a bolt stress–strain model. The method involves analyzing the ultrasonic time-domain signals of small-sized bolts under load in the frequency domain to better evaluate the changes in the ultrasonic frequencies under different pretension stress. The effectiveness of this method is verified through pretension stress measurement experiments. The results indicate that the proposed ultrasonic resonance method achieves an average error of less than 5% for M5 specification bolts. Compared to traditional ultrasonic time delay methods, the proposed method demonstrates higher measurement accuracy. Additionally, the ultrasonic resonance method exhibits better robustness during the measurement process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements in Ultrasonic Testing for Metallurgical Materials)
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