Taro RYUTAI received his B.Eng., M.Eng., and D.Eng. degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1970, 1972, and 1975, respectively.
He was a researcher at the Energy Research Laboratory of Mitsubishi Ltd. from 1975 to 1980 and an Associate Professor at the Nuclear Engineering Research Laboratory of Kyoto University from 1980 to 1982. From 1982 to 1994 he was an Associate Professor, and since 1994 has been a Professor, at the Institute of Fluid Science, Tohoku University.
His current research interests include nondestructive evaluation of materials using electromagnetic phenomena, diamond and diamond-like carbon coatings and their application, and adaptive structural systems using shape memory alloys.
ECT (Eddy Current Testing) and UT (Ultrasonic Testing) have been widely used for the non-destructive testing of metal structures. It is well known that these two techniques complement each other for crack sizing; ECT has a high capability of sizing of surface breaking crack and UT is suitable for sizing of sub-surface breaking crack in thick-wall structure. Due to the complementariness, there were some studies on data fusion research based on eddy current and ultrasonic measurements. Based on these backgrounds, the authors have proposed a novel combined system of EMAT (Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducer) and EC (Eddy Current) Probe as a multi-probe with simple structure that combines the advantages carried by ultrasonic testing (UT) and eddy current testing (ECT) through the joint research between Tohoku University and INSA-Lyon. This paper introduces the outline and some applications of the multi-probe. The complementariness of ECT and UT signals obtained by the probe is demonstrated.
