Jose Francisco Hernandez-Valle

Hi everyone!

I am a PhD student at the University of Warwick. My research interests lie in the area of ultrasonic transduction and I am particularly interested in developing a high temperature monitoring and inspection system using state of the art ultrasonic devices. My supervisor is Dr. Steve Dixon, who is head of the Ultrasonics group in the Physics Department. Funding for my work is provided by CONACyT (Mexican Council on Science and Technology), the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Elster Group.

About my research

There are many instances where components and plant operate at elevated temperatures such as turbines, high temperature processing pipework, power generation boilers and reactors. Almost all inspections of such machinery are carried out at lower or ambient temperature, necessitating at least partially shutting down the plant or the process.

Ultrasonic methods are generally recognised as one of the most flexible and powerful methods for non-destructive testing (NDT) in academic research and industrial environments. To date, there are a number of methods used for inspection of metallic components at high temperature, including eddy current and laser based ultrasonic methods. However, ultrasonic measurements are generally limited to temperatures below 200-300 °C because above this range there are in general no suitable commercially available ultrasonic transducers. Consequently, novel ultrasonic transducers, capable of operating at higher temperatures are of great interest to both academic researchers and potential industrial users.

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My work was selected to be displayed at the House of Commons on 8^th March in the Physical Sciences (Physics) poster session. This event is known as SET FOR BRITAIN 2010, and is organised by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.

My first research paper has been accepted for publication in NDT & E International, and it is available online here. The complete reference is: NDT and E International 43 (2010), pp. 171-175. DOI information: 10.1016/j.ndteint.2009.10.009

My work was presented (15/09/09) in Materials Testing 2009. Blackpool, UK, 2009. Talk: “EMAT with pulsed electromagnet for high temperature”.

News: I was awarded with a Student Development Fellowship 2008, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Elster Group.