Speaker: Steve Dixon, University of Warwick
Date and time: 16:30-17:30, March 17
Venue: SIST 1A 200
Host: YE Chaofeng
Abstract:
Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducers (EMATs) have found applications in a number of niche areas over the past 60 years, and despite being a well-established technology, there are many people involved in non-destructive testing who have not really considered their use. As a transducer, they are generally much less efficient at generating or detecting ultrasound when compared to piezoelectric transducers, but with their non-contact nature and ability to generate some wave modes that are difficult to do with contact transducers, they can offer some unique and distinct advantages over more conventional ultrasonic transducers. In this talk the basic mechanisms of ultrasonic generation and detection using EMATs will be discussed, and several common misconceptions about the way that they work will be mentioned and explained. The talk will then move on to cover some of the applications that EMATs have been used in, where they have been able to perform measurements that would have been difficult with conventional ultrasonic transducers.
Biography:
Professor Steve Dixon is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Director of the Centre for Industrial Ultrasonics at Warwick University. He is notable for his internationally pioneering research into techniques for Non-Destructive Testing and ultrasonics, particularly for application of electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs). This world-leading research led to the award of the Roy Sharpe Prize in 2018 and to being the three-times winner of the John Grimwade Medal. He has worked with numerous companies to develop new instrumentation in the area of ultrasonics. He has created successful spin-out companies from his research.