TOFD Beam Coverage and Dead Zone Calculator 1.0

TOFD Beam Coverage and Dead Zone Calculator

A practical tool for planning and validating Time of Flight Diffraction (TOFD) inspections. It helps NDT professionals estimate beam coverage across the weld thickness and quantify near- and far-surface dead zones so you can choose probe angles, PCS, and frequencies with confidence.

Key capabilities

• Calculates upper and lower coverage limits for a given thickness, probe angle, and PCS
• Estimates near-surface and far-surface dead zones based on pulse length/frequency and wedge delay
• Suggests PCS and angle combinations to achieve full-thickness coverage
• Highlights coverage gaps and overlap to support scanner setup decisions
• Supports user-defined material velocities and wedge parameters
• Works in metric and imperial units
• Generates clean, shareable calculation summaries for procedures and reports

Typical inputs

• Material thickness and longitudinal wave velocity
• Probe frequency and nominal pulse length
• Wedge refracted angle and delay
• Probe center separation (PCS)

Typical outputs

• Coverage depth range (upper/lower bounds)
• Estimated dead-zone depths at the entry and backwall surfaces
• Recommended PCS/angle adjustments to improve coverage
• Pass/fail warnings for full-thickness coverage

Who it’s for

• NDT Level II and Level III personnel
• Welding inspectors and procedure writers
• Trainers and students learning TOFD setup optimization

Benefits

• Reduce trial-and-error during setup
• Improve consistency across crews and jobs
• Document decisions with clear, repeatable calculations

Notes

• Results are estimates based on user inputs and common TOFD assumptions; validate against calibration blocks and applicable codes before use in production.
• For complex geometries, anisotropic materials, or combined techniques (e.g., TOFD + PAUT), use this calculator as a starting point and confirm with on-instrument checks.

TOFD Beam Coverage and Dead Zone Calculator is developed by AUT Solutions. The most popular version of this product among our users is 1.0. The names of program executable files are TOFD and Dead Zone Calculator.exe, TOFD Beam Coverage and Dead Zone Calculator.exe.

You can check Concise Beam, JBL CBT Calculator, EZ-ZONE CONFIGURATOR and other related programs like Covera Zone at the "download" section.