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[[♪music♪] [Alan Hunscott - Technical Support Manager of GE] ]
[Ultrasonics is advanced technology providing a simple solution to a complex problem.]
[The medical technology of echography is exactly the same as the technology]
[that we're using here--we've taken this technology from the medical world.]
[Medical technicians use this for fetal development in pregnant women,]
[and we're using exactly the same technology and the benefit that we have now]
[is that we have an image that's much easier to identify than previously]
[with industrial ultrasonic images.]
[The application on gold and in the airline industry ]
[is identical from a technical point of view.]
[There's a requirement for the highest levels of security and integrity,]
[and we're applying those to gold inspection.]
[The defects that you tend to get on rail tracks]
[tend to be caused by the rail wheels hitting the track,]
[and you get a defect that occurs at the surface, and it grows from the surface,]
[and it gets bigger, which is why it needs to be checked regularly]
[and eventually it will go all the way through and cause a catastrophic failure.]
[What we're looking for in gold bars are defects that are there permanently.]
[They aren't going to grow, but they could affect the integrity of the gold bar.]
[Using the ultrasonic technology and the Phasor XS from General Electric ]
[we can look inside the material inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter.]
[The first thing we have to do is apply a gel.]
[The purpose of the gel is to exclude the air ]
[from between the probe and the gold bar. ]
[We then put the probe onto the surface]
[and look at the image that we get on the screen of the Phasor,]
[which basically shows us the top of the material,]
[the bottom of the material, ]
[and this is where we're non-destructively looking inside the material.]
[So we've got a cross-sectional view, and as we move the probe,]
[we're effectively, non-destructively looking inside the gold bar]
[wherever we position the probe, and if we had an air gap, a void, ]
[another material inserted in there--]
[the image on the screen would clearly display that.]
[We're now going to test a brass sample with the Phasor XS.]
[The first thing we have to do is select a different material for the instrument,]
[which has changed the acoustic velocity.]
[We then need to put the couplant on]
[in exactly the same way that we did with the gold bar.]
[Now we put the probe on, and we have our section]
[and on this image we can clearly see that we now have a defect showing.]
[Top of the material, back of the material--that's the indication of a defect,]
[and that's how a defect would look in a gold bar. ]
[We've now moved off the defect.]
[We carry on, scanning across the surface,]
[and now we've got a much larger defect showing, ]
[so that's the signal from the larger defect, ]
[and in fact, that type of signal is what we would expect to see]
[from an insert as opposed to a void. ]
[That would be the signal from a void--a small isolated indication.]
[That would be the indication we would get from an insert.]
[Ultrasound is a method for inspecting gold bars.]
[It should give you a very high level of confidence ]
[that you would detect any discontinuities]
[or contamination in the gold bar.]
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