Defect imaging with elastic waves in inhomogeneous–anisotropic materials with composite geometries

Imaging of defects in composite structures plays an important role in non-destructive testing (NDT) with elastic waves, i.e., ultrasound. Traditionally the imaging of such defects is performed using the synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) algorithm assuming homogeneous isotropic materials. However, if parts of the structure are inhomogeneous and/or anisotropic, this algorithm fail to produce correct results that are needed in order to asses the lifetime of the part under test. Here we present a modification of this algorithm which enables a correct imaging of defects in inhomogeneous and/or anisotropic composite structures, whence it is termed InASAFT. The InASAFT is based on the exact modelling of the structure in order to account for the true nature of the elastic wave propagation using travel time ray tracing techniques. The algorithm is validated upon several numerical and real life examples yielding satisfactory results for imaging of cracks. The modified algorithm suffers, though, from the same difficulties encountered in the SAFT algorithm, namely “ghost” images and eventual lack of clear focused images. However, these artifacts can be identified using a forward wave propagation analysis of the structure.