6.

2 Attenuation in Metals 115

this changes to 8.9 to 9.0 if hammered. Since porosity reduces the velocity of sound
the compacting should manifest itself by an increase of the sound velocity.
The effect of the working on the attenuation of the sound is particularly pro-
nounced in the case of non-ferrous metals as well as high-alloyed steels. While in
the as-cast structure even small thicknesses can frequently not be penetrated, they
can readily be penetrated even after the fust pass during rolling. Particularly dis-
turbing in such materials therefore is a zone in the finished piece in which the cast
structure has not yet been sufficiently compacted because of insufficient deforma-
tion. A special condition of crystallization, for example an austenitic structure, has
apparently no great significance in itself, but it is important to know whether this
condition is present in the cast structure or the worked structure. For instance, the
material of rolled austenitic pipes can readily be penetrated, while an austenitic
weld joining them usually shows bad transmission because of its cast structure.
It may be mentioned briefly that the improved mechanical properties of centri-
fugal casting as compared with chill castings, sand castings or continuous castings,
immediately manifest themselves in their ultrasonic behaviour. The centrifugal
casting shows better ultrasonic transmittance and is therefore easier to test. It is de-
batable whether this is merely an effect of the finer grain or of a simultaneously
changed condition of the grain boundaries. This has been observed not only in cast
iron but also in non-ferrous metals [1453].
Generally the attenuation along the sound path is connected with the disper-
sion of the velocities, depending on the properties of the material and its structure.
Based on this effect a new method has been developed to evaluate the structure
from the scattering of sound at the boundaries of the grains and the different solid
phases of the material [S 165, S 72-75].
Regarding further theoretical relationships between attenuation, dispersion, fre-
quency, grain size, scattering and anisotropy see also [992, 32, 1627, 1676, 581, 582,
434, 532, 535, 631, and 13, p.112f.].
Measurements are reported in [130, 992, 993, 19] on aluminium, magnesium,
nickel and brass, metals of simple structure and well defined grain size. They con-
firm qualitatively the theoretical approach. Measurements on steel are given in
[1276, 940, 1161, 88, 21, 433].
Regarding measurement techniques see Section 33.3. The main difficulty, in
addition to the measurement technique itself, consists in keeping constant all the
numerous extraneous variables within a series of samples except for the one under
review.
For the practical purpose of non-destructive testing the results can be summar-
ized by rule of thumb as follows:
1. The scattering produced by a given material increases rapidly with increasing
grain size, or decreasing wavelength, if the grain size is about 1110 of the wave-
length or greater. However, the effect becomes disturbing only if the material
appears far to the right in the anisotropic series.
2. In complex metallurgical structures the grain size should be defined as the max-
imum structural dimension which occurs.
3. A cast structure produces stronger attenuation than a deformed structure, even
in the case of identical grain sizes.