7th November 2023
Dr Rachel Edwards (University of Warwick)
Have you ever wondered how to keep power stations, the railway network, and rollercoasters safe? Probably not – but non-destructive testing is being performed all the time to try to prevent disasters, by finding defects in structures (yes, including concrete). The most common inspection uses ultrasound – and, just like medical ultrasound, most of the work needs to use gel couplant – and that’s not always desirable. This talk will tell you about non-destructive testing, and introduce some new ways of generating and detecting ultrasound – from using electricity & magnetism to generate ultrasound in metals, to using lasers to detect it – and how to do the testing quickly using robots. Finally, it will introduce a new method of ‘seeing sound’ using liquid crystals, which may lead to smart paints and the ability to do the testing quickly and easily.