COMMENT

摘要

As is usual for the November issue of Insight, this month focuses on ultrasonic methods. Stepping back for a minute and looking at the methods employed by each paper, it appears that there continues to be a combination of NDT and condition monitoring methods being developed, which is encouraging to see. There is also a common theme between all of the papers and that is one of computer modelling of some sort. If one looks more widely across most ultrasonic research papers, computer modelling and signal processing often underpin the work, as it is with so many areas of research now. Does this mean that we have now reached a stage where innovation in ultrasonic research is solely dependent on innovation in computational methods, rather than developments in the actual hardware or fundamental approach used? I suspect not, but it is hard to find new research papers in ultrasound that are not underpinned by computation. This is not without good reason, as with improved processing speed and power we continue to find that we can now do things that previously were too expensive or time consuming - a statement that has probably been repeated many times since before the days when the Z80 became common place (younger readers may need to Google this).