Ultrasonic imaging through reverberation media

Ye Han; Keji Yang; Jian Chen; Eryong Wu; Haoran Jin

doi:10.1016/j.ultras.2023.106959

Ultrasonic imaging through reverberation media

Ultrasonics. 2023 May:131:106959. doi: 10.1016/j.ultras.2023.106959. Epub 2023 Feb 16.

Authors

Ye Han¹, Keji Yang², Jian Chen², Eryong Wu², Haoran Jin²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; PipeChina Eastern Oil Storage and Transportation Co. Ltd, Xuzhou, 221008, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.

PMID: 36827907
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2023.106959

Abstract

Thin layered media like thermal barrier and corrosion resistant coating layers, are important components to protect and strengthen the base materials. Nevertheless, the non-destructive testing (NDT) of base materials under thin layer media are still strongly demanded. However, surface and reverberation waves propagating in the top thin layer deteriorate the ultrasonic imaging results of base materials. Particularly, they overwhelm the reflection waves of defects, making ultrasonic NDT of base materials a challenge. These waves are determined by the structural of testing objects and called structural noises. Here, a pre-process of ultrasonic total focusing method is proposed to remove the structural noises. The pre-process utilizes the different similarity characteristics of structural noises and defect signals in diagonal matrices to suppress the noises by principal component analysis. The experimental results show that it can effectively improve the SNR about 5-8 dB and reduce array performance indicators about 30-40%.

Keywords: Layered media; Total focusing method (TFM); Ultrasonic imaging reconstruction; Ultrasonic non-destructive testing.