An effective defect identification scheme in pipeline ultrasonic testing

The identification of a defect from its pulse-echo ultrasonic signal is a difficult task but greatly significant for defect evaluation in pipeline ultrasonic testing. In this work, an effective defect identification scheme, which uses the deconvolution technique, is developed to identify the ultrasonic signals from simulated defects with two different shapes (a notch and a transverse cylindrical cavity) on a pipeline specimen. A DSF (Defect Similarity Function) defined as a deconvolution of a target signal by a reference signal is used to classify the defects. Experimental results indicate that the DSFs for the same type of defect-reference signals are narrow impulselike patterns with larger amplitudes, while those for the different types of defect-reference signals are broad impulselike patterns with relatively smaller amplitudes. Furthermore, the DSF is sensitive to defect shapes but non-sensitive to the measuring distance and defect size. Therefore, the defects can be identified from the pattern of the DSF. The proposed technique shows great potential for the identification of defects via ultrasonic signals in the pipeline inspection.