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May 15, 2007
Lalita Udpa Selected as ASNT Fellow
Lalita Udpa, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been selected as a 2007 fellow of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT). The award will be presented at the society's fall conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. ASNT helps create a safer world by serving the NDT professions and promoting NDT technologies through publishing, certification, research, and conferencing. A fellow of ASNT has achieved outstanding professional distinction and made continued significant contributions to the advancement of NDT in areas such as management, engineering, science, education, administration, or planning. A candidate for the title of fellow must have at least 15 years of professional NDT experience and 10 continuous years of ASNT membership.
Udpa works primarily in the broad areas of nondestructive evaluation (NDE), signal and image processing, inverse problems, and biomedical applications. Her research involves the use of electromagnetic methods for assessing the structural integrity of components in critical structures such as aircraft and nuclear power plants. This work entails both the development of computational models of the underlying physics and the development of signal processing techniques for interpreting the measurements.
Automated signal interpretation modules developed by her group are used by several industries for rapid analysis of large volumes of data. These modules have been integrated with commercial systems and employed by the Electric Power Research Institute for analyzing eddy current signals from steam generator tubes in nuclear power plants, by Honeywell for engine disk inspection in commercial aircraft, and by the Navy for analysis of signals from the inspection of submarine hull welds.
She is also involved in the development of computational models for solving the forward problem in NDE. Her three-dimensional computational models based on finite element analysis are used by Boeing for optimizing the design of GMR sensors and systems for more accurately detecting smaller defects embedded in multilayer structures.
Her team’s computational model for “Turbo Magneto-Optic Imaging for Inspection of Alodine Fasteners” was commended in 2005 by the Federal Aviation Administration through its “Better Way” award, which recognizes “a government/industry team that has worked together to develop and apply a technology . . . to advance inspection or testing of aircraft structure, aircraft components, or aircraft systems.” Udpa’s team helped develop a more sensitive system to detect surface and sub-surface cracks in the lower row of rivets in aircraft lap splices. Air Transport Association President and CEO James C. May said, “This outstanding team’s . . . innovative efforts will have industry-wide applicability and a lasting impact on the aviation industry.” The model is now used in industry for sensor improvements.
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