Thinned array ultrasonic imaging of debonding defects in discontinuous impedance bonded structures

Abstract

Ballastless track is a typical bonding structure with discontinuous impedance. Under the influence of heavy load, deteriorating environment and other situations, the circumstance of debonding occurs frequently and seriously affects the safety of train operation. In this work, a high-precision array ultrasound fast imaging method is proposed. Based on the propagation path and time of sound wave in the medium obtained by ray tracing method, a theoretical model of sound velocity of discontinuous impedance bonding structure is established when the difference in sound velocity among dielectric layers is taken into account. High degree of freedom sparse array based on real number coding as well as synthetic aperture focusing technology (SAFT) imaging method is used to improve detection efficiency. The results of the experiments carried out on ballast less track structure are shown below. The ray tracing method can accurately calculate the propagation path and propagation time of ultrasonic wave and improve the detection accuracy. The optimized thinned array pattern has narrowed the main lobe width and low side lobe gain, which improves the detection efficiency and sound field directivity. The efficiency of thinned array SAFT imaging method is improved by 30.9% when the imaging error of debonding defects is within ±5%, which provides a theoretical support fordetecting such debonding defects.