RESUMO
A study that evaluated the use of ultrasonic-guided waves to detect water in hollow pipes is presented. In this work, a guided wave system employed a 40 kHz piezoelectric (PZT) transmitter and a PZT ultrasound transducer. The transmitter was based on a battery-operated microcontroller, and the receiver was composed of a digital signal processor (DSP) module connected to a PC via a USB for monitoring purposes. The transmitter and receiver were attached, non-intrusively without perfect alignment, to the external wall of a steel tube 1 m × 270 mm × 2 mm in size. Flood detection was performed based on guided wave attenuation due to energy leakage from the internal steel wall of the tube to water. Two approaches were carried out. The former was an off-line signal response based on the wavelet energy entropy analysis of a received pulse; the latter was a real-time hit-and-miss analysis centered on measuring the time-space in-between two transmitted pulses. Experiments performed in the laboratory successfully identified flooded tubes.
RESUMO
Milk is an important dietary requirement for many populations due to its high nutritional value. However, increased demand has also made it prone to fraudulent activity. In this sense, scientists have sought to develop simple, low-cost, and portable techniques to achieve quality control of milk in industry and farms as well. This work proposes a new instrumentation system based on acoustic propagation and advanced signal processing techniques to identify milk adulteration by industrial contaminants. A pair of transmitter-receiver low-cost piezoelectric transducers, configured in a pitch-catch mode, propagated acoustic waves in the bovine milk samples contaminated with 0.5% of sodium bicarbonate, urea, and hydrogen peroxide. Signal processing approaches such as chromatic technique and statistical indexes like the correlation coefficient, Euclidian norm and cross-correlation square difference were applied to identify the contaminants. According to the presented results, CCSD and RMSD metrics presented more effectiveness to perform the identification of milk contaminants. However, CCSD was 2.28 × 105 more sensitivity to distinguish adulteration in relation to RMSD. For chromatic clustering technique, the major selectivity was observed between the contamination performed by sodium bicarbonate and urea. Therefore, results indicate that the proposed approach can be an effective and quick alternative to assess the milk condition and classify its contaminants.
Assuntos
Contaminação de Alimentos , Leite , Acústica , Animais , Bovinos , Contaminação de Medicamentos , Contaminação de Alimentos/análise , UreiaRESUMO
The interest of the scientific community for ultrasound techniques has increased in recent years due to its wide range of applications. A continuous effort of researchers and industries has been made in order to improve and increase the applicability of non-destructive evaluations (NDE). In this context, the monitoring of manufacturing processes, such as the grinding process, arises. This work proposes a novel technique of ultrasound monitoring (chirp-through-transmission) through low-cost piezoelectric diaphragms and digital signal processing. The proposed technique was applied to the monitoring of material removal during the grinding process. The technique is based on changes in ultrasonic waves when propagated through the material under study, with the difference that this technique does not use traditional parameters of ultrasonic techniques but digital signal processing (RMS and Counts). Furthermore, the novelty of the proposed technique is also the use of low-cost piezoelectric diaphragms in the emission and reception of ultrasonic waves, enabling the implementation of a low-cost monitoring system. The results show that the monitoring technique proposed in this work, when used in conjunction with the frequency band selection, is sensitive to the material removal in the grinding process and therefore presents an advance for monitoring the grinding processes.
RESUMO
By using the principles behind phononic crystals, a periodic array of circular holes made along the polarization thickness direction of piezoceramic resonators are used to stop the planar resonances around the thickness mode band. In this way, a piezoceramic resonator adequate for operation in the thickness mode with an in phase vibration surface is obtained, independently of its lateral shape. Laser vibrometry, electric impedance tests and finite element models are used to corroborate the performances of different resonators made with this procedure. This method can be useful in power ultrasonic devices, physiotherapy and other external medical power ultrasound applications where piston-like vibration in a narrow band is required.