Robustness of ultrasonic detection of flaws by using synthetic aperture focusing technique

Abstract

One of the challenging problems in non-destructive evaluation is related to identification and sizing of flaws. A high resolution image of the scanned part is required. This allows, through using adequate post-processing of data, to perform localisation and sizing of a flaw. Several techniques have been introduced recently for this purpose. These include among others the synthetic aperture focusing technique, inverse wave-field extrapolation and the total focusing method. However, large uncertainties are affecting the inverse problem solution as provided by these methods when dealing with small defects. It was recognized that reconstruction based on the ultrasonic synthetic aperture focusing technique elaborated in frequency domain provides high resolution imaging even at large distances. This work focused on this promising procedure for the special case of ultrasonic imaging of flaws in 2D elastic medium under plane strain conditions, where the image is provided by a B-scan. Robustness of detection was investigated through perturbing the radargram by white noise and assessed as function of noise energy. It was found that synthetic aperture focusing technique is insensitive to noise.