Time-frequency beamforming for nondestructive evaluations of plate using ultrasonic Lamb wave

The objective of this study is to detect structural defect locations in a plate by exciting the plate with a specific ultrasonic Lamb wave and recording reflective wave signals using a piezoelectric transducer array. For the purpose of eliminating the effects of the direct excitation signals as well as the boundary-reflected wave signals, it is proposed to improve a conventional MUSIC beamforming procedure by processing the measured signals in the time-frequency domain. In addition, a normalized, damped, cylindrical 2-D steering vector is proposed to increase the spatial resolution of time-frequency MUSIC power results. A cross-shaped array is selected to further improve the spatial resolution and to avoid mirrored virtual image effects. Here, it is experimentally demonstrated that the proposed time-frequency MUSIC beamforming procedure can be used to identify structural defect locations on an aluminum plate by distinguishing the defect-induced waves from the excitation-generated and boundary-reflected waves. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.