Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/I011064/1
Title:	Improved permanently installed ultrasonic monitoring of structures at elevated temperatures
Principal Investigator:	Cegla, Dr F
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Mechanical Engineering
Organisation:	Imperial College London
Scheme:	First Grant - Revised 2009
Starts:	01 May 2011	Ends:	30 April 2013	Value (£):	96,292
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Materials testing & eng. Structural Engineering
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Energy
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 22 Jul 2010 Materials, Mechanical and Medical Engineering Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
The objective of this proposal is to explore the feasibility of permanently installed ultrasonic monitoring of degradation mechanisms at elevated temperatures, with a special focus on hydrogen attack. To date, very few permanently installed monitoring systems exist. This is historically due to the lack of robust transducers that can survive harsh environments and the unavailability of cheap electronics and wireless communication that make manual intervention and its associated errors less important. As electronics and wireless technology have rapidly advanced, their mass deployment has become economically feasible. It is the ultrasonic monitoring technique and sensors that require research input in order to allow the development and future deployment of permanently installed sensors for monitoring material degradation. The author has recently developed a robust method that can be used to send and receive ultrasonic signals to and from test pieces at elevated temperatures for long periods of time. It is the aim to use this transduction method to couple ultrasonic signals into a test piece and monitor its degradation. From the many degradation processes that exist, hydrogen attack presents a problem in industrial applications at elevated temperatures and has been chosen as an example mechanism to focus on. The main challenge of the proposed work is to make the measurement system stable enough in order to reliably detect and monitor the relatively small changes that are introduced by a material degradation mechanism such as hydrogen attack (the ultrasonic velocity, attenuation and backscatter are changed by the formation of voids in the steel). The final aim is to experimentally demonstrate the feasibility of ultrasonic monitoring of hydrogen attack.
Key Findings
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Organisation Website:	http://www.imperial.ac.uk