Application and Practice of Ultrasonic Thickness Gauges for Thin Coating Measurement on Composite Plates

Material Overview

In high-end industrial fields such as aerospace, automotive manufacturing, and new energy equipment, aluminum plates and composite materials are widely used due to their lightweight properties, high strength, and excellent corrosion resistance. Thin surface coatings — including anti-corrosion coatings, wear-resistant coatings, and insulating layers — play a critical role in improving material performance and service life. The uniformity and accuracy of coating thickness directly affect product reliability, durability, and operational safety.

Thanks to their non-destructive, efficient, and portable characteristics, ultrasonic thickness gauges have become one of the mainstream solutions for thin coating thickness measurement.

01 Applications of Ultrasonic Thickness Gauges for These Materials

Ultrasonic thickness gauges are widely used throughout the entire lifecycle of aluminum plates and composite materials with thin coatings, mainly in the following three scenarios:

Production Process Quality Control

The gauges are used to monitor coating application consistency during manufacturing, ensuring coating thickness meets design specifications across batch production. This helps prevent corrosion failure caused by insufficient coating thickness while also avoiding unnecessary material costs from excessive coating thickness.

Pre-Service Inspection and Acceptance Testing

Finished products undergo comprehensive coating thickness inspections to detect defects such as thickness deviations or local coating omissions before delivery or operation.

In-Service Maintenance Evaluation

By periodically measuring coating thickness changes during service, operators can evaluate coating aging and wear conditions, providing important data for maintenance and refurbishment decisions.

In applications such as aerospace aluminum alloy structural components, aluminum battery housings for new energy vehicles, and marine engineering composite panels, ultrasonic thickness measurement plays a vital role in ensuring operational safety and reliability.

02 Actual Measurement Performance

The PM5 Gen3 is equipped with multiple high-frequency transducer options. For thin material measurement, high-frequency probes are recommended because they can generate narrow ultrasonic pulses, effectively minimizing the measurement dead zone and clearly separating echoes from the upper and lower surfaces of thin materials.

As shown in the waveform display from the actual measurement images, the echoes from the upper and lower surfaces are clearly distinguished without overlap or signal interference.

In addition, the instrument utilizes high-speed digital sampling technology to achieve a thickness measurement resolution of up to 0.0001 mm (0.1 μm), enabling extremely fine thickness variations to be displayed accurately and providing strong support for high-precision measurements.

03 Conclusion

With its high-frequency measurement capability, intelligent signal processing, and multi-mode adaptability, the PM5 Gen3 ultrasonic thickness gauge effectively addresses key technical challenges in thin aluminum plate and composite material measurement, including signal identification, coupling stability, and interference suppression.

Based on actual measurement performance, the instrument demonstrates excellent accuracy, stability, and ease of operation, fully meeting the demanding requirements of high-end manufacturing industries for thin material inspection.

As an advanced solution for non-destructive thin material measurement, the PM5 Gen3 not only provides reliable technical support for quality control of aluminum and composite thin plates, but also further expands the application boundaries of ultrasonic thickness measurement technology in precision manufacturing industries, offering significant practical and industrial value.

04 About YUSHI

The PM5 Gen3 supports ultrasonic frequencies up to 75 MHz and is compatible with 30 MHz, 50 MHz, and 75 MHz high-frequency transducers, making it ideal for the measurement of ultra-thin materials, coatings, and multilayer structures.