Ultrasonic torsional guided wave sensor for flow front monitoring inside molds

Measuring the extent of flow of viscous fluids inside opaque molds has been a very important parameter in determining the quality of products in the manufacturing process such as injection molding and resin transfer molding. Hence, in this article, an ultrasonic torsional guided wave sensor has been discussed for monitoring the movement of flow front during filling of resins in opaque molds. A pair of piezoelectric normal shear transducers were used for generating and receiving the fundamental ultrasonic torsional guided wave mode in thin copper wires. The torsional mode was excited at one end of the wire, while the flowing viscous fluid progressively wet the other free end of the wire. The time of flight of the transient reflections of this fundamental mode from the air-fluid interface, where the wire enters the resin, was used to measure the position of the fluid flow front. Experiments were conducted on four fluids with different viscosity values. Two postprocessing algorithms were developed for enhancing the transient reflected signal and for suppressing the unwanted stationary signals. The algorithms were tested for cases where the reflected signals showed a poor signal to noise ratio. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.