Thompson V. Nguyen

Noncontact ultrasonic guided wave inspection of rails

This article describes a new system for high-speed and noncontact rail integrity evaluation being developed at the University of California at San Diego. A prototype using an ultrasonic air-coupled guided wave signal generation and air-coupled signal detection has been tested at the University of California at San Diego Rail Defect Farm. In addition to a real-time statistical analysis algorithm, the prototype uses a specialized filtering approach due to the inherently poor signal-to-noise ratio of the air-coupled ultrasonic measurements in rail steel. The laboratory results indicate that the prototype is able to detect internal rail defects with a high reliability. Extensions of the system are planned to add rail surface characterization to the internal rail defect detection. In addition to the description of the prototype and test results, numerical analyses of ultrasonic guided wave propagation in rails have been performed using a Local Interaction Simulation Approach algorithm and some of these results are shown. The numerical analysis has helped designing various aspects of the prototype for maximizing its sensitivity to defects.

Ultrasonic Imaging in Solids Using Wave Mode Beamforming

This paper discusses some improvements to ultrasonic synthetic imaging in solids with primary applications to nondestructive testing of materials and structures. Specifically, the study proposes new adaptive weights applied to the beamforming array that are based on the physics of the propagating waves, specifically the displacement structure of the propagating longitudinal (L) mode and shear (S) mode that are naturally coexisting in a solid. The wave mode structures can be combined with the wave geometrical spreading to better filter the array (in a matched filter approach) and improve its focusing ability compared to static array weights. This paper also proposes compounding, or summing, images obtained from the different wave modes to further improve the array gain without increasing its physical aperture. The wave mode compounding can be performed either incoherently or coherently, in analogy with compounding multiple frequencies or multiple excitations. Numerical simulations and experimental testing demonstrate the potential improvements obtainable by the wave structure adaptive weights compared to either static weights in conventional delay-and-sum focusing, or adaptive weights based on geometrical spreading alone in minimum-variance distortionless response focusing.

Field Test Performance of Noncontact Ultrasonic Rail Inspection System

AbstractThis paper presents the latest results from a noncontact ultrasonic rail inspection system developed at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) under the auspices of the Federal Rail...

Tomographic Imaging of Structural Flaws with New Adaptive Weights on Array

The ability to image a structural flaw in 3D allows to make informed decisions on followup maintenance actions. Flaw imaging can be achieved through the use of tomographic image reconstruction algorithms applied to transient mechanical or thermal waves. Tomographic ultrasonic imaging, for example, is a well-known technique in the engineering NDE/SHM field as well as the medical diagnostic field. In order to improve the contrast and resolution performance of tomographic imaging systems, apodization weights are often applied to the transducer array. One such example of weighing is the well known minimum variance distorsionless (MVD) technique that applies adaptive weights to the array based on the imaging focus point. In this paper we present new adapting weighing techniques, based on the structure of the propagating ultrasonic wave mode (whether longitudinal or shear) and based on the geometrical attenuation behavior of the propagating wave. Such weighting “forces” the array to focus to a specific point of interest within the imaging volume. Imaging results from simulations will be presented and the performance of the proposed weighting technique compared to existing tomographic imaging will be identified. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/328

Non-contact ultrasonic guided wave inspections of rails

The University of California at San Diego (UCSD), under a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research and Development (R&D) grant, is developing a system for high-speed and non-contact rail integrity evaluation. A prototype using an ultrasonic air-coupled guided wave signal generation and air-coupled signal detection, in pair with a real-time statistical analysis algorithm, is under development. Experimental tests results, carried out at the UCSD Rail Defect Farm, indicate that the prototype is able to detect internal rail defects with high reliability. Extensions of the system are planned to add rail surface characterization to the internal rail defect detection.

Defect detection performance of the UCSD non-contact air-coupled ultrasonic guided wave inspection of rails prototype

The University of California at San Diego (UCSD), under a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research and Development (R&D) grant, is developing a system for high-speed and non-contact rail defect detection. A prototype using an ultrasonic air-coupled guided wave signal generation and air-coupled signal detection, paired with a real-time statistical analysis algorithm, has been realized. This system requires a specialized filtering approach based on electrical impedance matching due to the inherently poor signal-to-noise ratio of air-coupled ultrasonic measurements in rail steel. Various aspects of the prototype have been designed with the aid of numerical analyses. In particular, simulations of ultrasonic guided wave propagation in rails have been performed using a Local Interaction Simulation Approach (LISA) algorithm. The system’s operating parameters were selected based on Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves, which provide a quantitative manner to evaluate different detection performances based on the trade-off between detection rate and false positive rate. The prototype based on this technology was tested in October 2014 at the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colorado, and again in November 2015 after incorporating changes based on lessons learned. Results from the 2015 field test are discussed in this paper.

Ultrasonic imaging using wave structure-based weights and global matched coefficients

In the field of non-destructive evaluation of structures, 2D and 3D imaging of internal flaws is a critical task. Defect imaging allows making informed follow-up decisions based on the morphology of the flaw. This paper will present advances in ultrasonic tomography for the 2D and 3D visualization of internal flaws in solids. In particular, improvements to the conventional tomographic imaging algorithms have been made by utilizing a mode-selective image reconstruction scheme that exploits the specific displacement field, respectively, of the longitudinal wave modes and the shear wave modes, both propagating simultaneously in the test volume. The specific mode structure is exploited by an adaptive weight assignment to the ultrasonic tomographic array. Such adaptive weighting forces the imaging array to look at a specific scan direction and better focus the imaging onto the actual flaw (ultrasound reflector). Moreover, the introduction of a global matched coefficient, computed through the matching of measured and expected times of flight for each pixel, is illustrated. The benefits deriving from the application of this coefficient to conventional imaging frameworks are shown. This study shows that the adaptive weighing based on wave structure and the integration of the global matched coefficient improve image contrast and resolution compared to a conventional ultrasonic imaging technique based on a delay-and-sum or minimum variance distortionless method. Results will be shown from experimental tests of simulated flaws in solids.

Ultrasonic imaging with wave mode adaptive weights and global matched coefficient

This paper discusses some improvements to ultrasonic synthetic imaging in solids. Specifically, the study proposes new adaptive weights applied to the beamforming array that are based on the physics of the propagating waves, specifically the displacement structure of the propagating longitudinal (L) mode and shear (S) mode that are naturally coexisting in a solid. The wave mode structures can be combined with the wave geometrical spreading to better filter the array and improve its focusing ability compared to static array weights. The paper also proposes compounding, or summing, images obtained from the different wave modes to further improve the array gain without increasing its physical aperture. The wave mode compounding can be performed either incoherently or coherently, in analogy with compounding multiple frequencies or multiple excitations. Furthermore, the introduction of a global matched coefficient computed through the matching of measured and expected times of flight will be presented to show ...

Non-contact ultrasonic guided wave inspection of rails: field test results and updates

The University of California at San Diego (UCSD), under a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research and Development (R&D) grant, is developing a system for high-speed and non-contact rail defect detection. A prototype using an ultrasonic air-coupled guided wave signal generation and air-coupled signal detection, paired with a real-time statistical analysis algorithm, has been realized. This system requires a specialized filtering approach based on electrical impedance matching due to the inherently poor signal-to-noise ratio of air-coupled ultrasonic measurements in rail steel. Various aspects of the prototype have been designed with the aid of numerical analyses. In particular, simulations of ultrasonic guided wave propagation in rails have been performed using a Local Interaction Simulation Approach (LISA) algorithm. The system’s operating parameters were selected based on Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves, which provide a quantitative manner to evaluate different detection performances based on the trade-off between detection rate and false positive rate. Results from the first field test of the non-contact air-coupled defect detection prototype conducted at the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colorado, in October 2014 are presented and discussed in this paper. The results indicate that the prototype is able to detect internal cracks with high reliability.

High Speed Non-Contact Ultrasonic Guided Wave Inspections of Rails

This paper describes a new system for high-speed and non-contact rail defect detection being developed at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). A prototype using an ultrasonic air-coupled guided wave signal generation and air-coupled signal detection has been tested at the UCSD Rail Defect Farm. This solution presents an improvement over the previously considered laser/air-coupled hybrid system because it replaces the costly and hard-to-maintain laser with a much cheaper, faster, and easier-to-maintain air-coupled transmitter. In addition to a real-time statistical analysis algorithm, the prototype uses a specialized filtering approach to mitigate the inherently poor signal-to-noise ratio of the air-coupled ultrasonic measurements in rail steel. The laboratory results indicate that the prototype is able to detect internal rail defects with a high reliability. Various aspects of the prototype have been designed with the aid of numerical analyses. In particular, simulations of ultrasonic guided wave propagation in rails have been performed using a Local Interaction Simulation Approach (LISA) algorithm. Many of the system operating parameters were selected based on Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves, which provide a quantitative manner to evaluate different detection performances based on the trade-off between detection rate and false positive rate. Extensions of the system capability are planned to add rail surface characterization to the internal rail defect detection to optimize rail grinding operations.Copyright