Detecting a carbon fiber defect using medical grade ultrasound

[levifranz]

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I was recently in a mountain bike ride and my carbon bars slipped in the stem. Because I was out a ways, I decided the best thing to do was to tighten up my bars and ride out. But now I’m a little worried as I didn’t have a torque wrench on me. I don’t want the bars to break and was wondering if there was a good way to check the integrity of the bars when I ran across an article talking about checking carbon integrity using ultrasound. I’m a medical student and have access to ultrasound at my school. Im curious if anyone knows if this would work too check my bars? I realize that it’s different ultrasound machines, but its the same technology and seems like it could work in theory . Any material engineers out there want to weigh in?

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