Final Report Summary - SACUT (Steerable Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Technology for Flow Measurement and NDE Applications) Steerable Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Technology for Flow Measurement and NDE Applications, European Commission Ref. 612118Accurate flow measurement has become increasingly important for many key industrial sectors including oil and gas, aerospace, automotive, chemical and pharmaceutical process industries, as well as various military and government operations. While ultrasonic flow measurement offer numerous advantages, there remain many challenges that need to be overcome while making ultrasonic flow measurement both accurate & reliable, especially for applications in gas flow measurement. In order to tackle these issues, complex yet cost effective flow measurement instrumentation development is fundamental.The SACUT project involved the design, construction and testing of novel ultrasound measurement systems for air-coupled ultrasonics, primarily for flow measurement but also for generic Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) applications. This was achieved through effective knowledge transfer and collaboration between the four principal partners; the University of Warwick (UK), Elster NV/SA, Diagnostic Sonar, (UK) and the Technische Universität Darmstadt or TUDA (Germany). The project goals were to demonstrate that air coupled phased arrays could be designed, constructed and used in conjunction with bench top, phased array controller electronic systems and more portable, lower cost phased array systems. These goals have been achieved and the successful demonstration at Elster's facility of ultrasonic phased arrays using different sensors developed at Warwick and TUDA, controlled by a system built and programmed by Diagnostic Sonar.Diagnostic Sonar have developed a new product, capable of operating using air-coupled ultrasonic sensors that work at lower frequencies than conventional phased array systems. They have also developed a number of new algorithms and signal processing techniques that can be transferred to other applications that utilise ultrasonic arrays.Elster have obtained new knowledge on ultrasonic phased arrays and what their current potential and limitations are. It has been shown that it is possible to make an affordable and portable phased array controller system that can be used for ultrasonic transit time measurements of gas flow, and have supported trials at their test facilities in Mainz.Both Warwick and TUDA have gained valuable experience for industrial collaboration and technology transfer in addition to generating a large amount of published research output, and potential new users and markets for their research outputs. Partnering with the commercial organisations has enabled the development of complete systems that could be tested in realistic conditions taking into account the needs of equipment manufacturers and the end users of the technology.Project progress and results have been presented at several leading Scientific Conferences (IEEE, QNDE, Flomeko). We have aimed to reach academic, scientific and industrial communities at International Conferences, Industrial workshops and focus groups, as well as enthusing the general public at Science Fairs, Open Days and Demonstrations. There are strong links between the partner organisations, with further joint publications in progress and ongoing collaborations planned. Project's website: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/sacut
