Hear More: A Guide to Using Ultrasound for Leak Detection and Condition Monitoring

The use of airborne ultrasound by a wide array of manufacturing has led many to dub ultrasound a predictive maintenance tool for the masses. It is a technology with mass appeal, a wide range of applications, and a cost entry point that makes it accessible to practically anyone. In this book, the authors guide you through the technology step by step, with each chapter dedicated to an application and how the technology applies to that application. You will learn how the inspection should be carried out, along with real-life examples of how these applications are currently being applied. Airborne and structure borne ultrasonic inspection provides industry with an efficient solution for all kinds of preventative and predictive maintenance functions.

Few predictive maintenance tools are, on the one hand, as relevant as ultrasonic leak detection and monitoring and, on the other hand, as little known. Ultrasonics deserves better and Hear More makes the point more compellingly than any research papers remembered by this reviewer. Tom Murphy and Allan Rienstra, the authors of this small, easy to read 176-page book, set out to both inform and unlock our vision to Ultrasonics. They achieved this goal quite admirably and clearly prove that the technology is mature. Their text manages to open our perception to the surprising range of possibilities that offer themselves to industry. After presenting chapters on the principles of sound and measurement of ultrasound, each of the eight remaining chapters deals with highly practical applications. Case histories are organized under headings such as Friction, Impact, Tightness Testing, and others. The final chapter is given the fitting title Ten Steps to an Effective and Enduring Airborne Ultrasonic Program; it neatly highlights twelve applications that are certain to benefit reliability-focused users. Throughout the book the reader will sense that the co-authors are experts in both theory and practice of modern Ultrasonics. To summarize, they compellingly make the case for a predictive maintenance (PdM) technology that has a much larger range of application than the two - presently - more prominent players, which are rooted in infrared and vibration technology. In particular, the book has much merit by explaining the ease of use, surprising versatility and low implementation cost of Ultrasonics. Read it; you will undoubtedly benefit from doing so. --Heinz P. Bloch, P.E. Life Fellow, ASME