Journal of Welding Science

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One of the novel ultrasonic phased array based scanning methods for ultrasonic imaging in non-destructive test is total focusing method (TFM). This method employs maximum available information of the phased array elements and leads to an improved defect detection accuracy compared to conventional scanning methods. Despite its high detection accuracy, TFM behaves weak in distinguishing the real defects from noise which is because of its high background noise level. In this paper, a low complexity technique is presented for performance improvement of TFM which employs a beamforming method on the phased array received signals and leads to a reduction of the background noise and increase in the accuracy of the defect detection. To this end, a thresholding technique along with three-level clipping of the array received data is applied for low-complexity approximation of the correlation matrix inverse employed in the beamforming. Experimental results for detection of drilled holes on a steel pipe show a background noise reduction of 4.45 dB and improvement in the hole distinction of about 3 dB in comparison to those of TFM. In addition, as shown in the simulation results, the minimum distinguishable distance between two neighbor reflector points for the proposed method is 0.21 mm which is 0.23 mm lower than that for TFM.

Keywords: Ultrasonic phased array, Non-destructive testing, Welding inspection, Total focusing method, Beamforming.

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