A novel baseline-free defect detection and localization method of welded steel plate based on reciprocity loss

Abstract

In recent years, ultrasonic Lamb waves have been widely applied to the field of non-destructive testing of plate-like structures as they have outstanding advantages, such as low attenuation, high sensitivity, and wide detection range. Current studies about defect-detection of plate-like structures using Lamb waves mostly focus on non-weld plate-like structures, and defect-detection methods are based on baseline data. This paper proposes a novel baseline-free damage inspection method of welded plate-like structures, which is based on the principle of reciprocity loss and combines the OPTICS and K-means intelligent clustering algorithms to achieve accurate defect localization. In order to verify the location accuracy of the clustering defect localization algorithm, this paper performs comparative experiments between the ellipse imaging algorithm and the clustering algorithm, which use baseline data as health signals. The comparative experimental results show that the single-defect location accuracy of the clustering algorithm is greatly improved compared with the traditional ellipse algorithm. Moreover, in order to verify the validity and feasibility of the baseline-free method, this paper applies this method to obtain characteristic signals and combines the clustering algorithm to locate both single-defect and double-defects. The experimental result of baseline-free method shows that this method can successfully detect and locate multiple defects, which gets rid of the dependence of baseline data.

Damage Localization in Plate Structures Based on Baseline-Free Method of Lamb Wave Using Mobile Transducer Set

“…The reciprocity between two transducers can break down if localized nonlinear scatter exists along the wave path. The Lamb wave is an elastic wave that satisfies the reciprocity principle when propagating in the elastic material medium [3]. A damage index (DI) is defined to quantitatively analyze the loss of reciprocity in the time domain.…”

Statistics-based baseline-free approach for rapid inspection of delamination in composite structures using ultrasonic guided waves

“…However, typically such approaches require the comparison of two states of the system for identifying defects and hence are cumbersome. [13][14][15][16][17] Some baseline-free approaches rely on non-linear phenomena such as harmonic distortion and frequency modulation. 13,14,18 Such techniques may not require a baseline for defect identification, but they still involve the comparison of two system states.…”

Novel baseline-free ultrasonic Lamb wave defect location method based on path amplitude matching

“…Huang et al [23] harnessed the inherent anisotropic properties of the composite board to identify defects within it. Additionally, He et al [24] leveraged the anisotropic properties of the weld area in steel plates to achieve baseline-free defect detection in non-welded areas. The timereversal method predicated upon anisotropic properties is frequently employed in defect detection in composite panels [25,26].…”