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This paper describes an imaging method for near-field defect detection in aluminum plates based on Green's function recovery and application of instantaneous phase coherence weighting factors. The directly acquired acoustic information of near-field defects is usually obscured by the nonlinear effects due to the physical limitation of the acquisition system. Using the diffuse field to recover the Green's function can effectively retrieve the early time information. However, averaging operations of finite number in this process produces an imperfect imaging result. In order to improve the image quality, two kinds of instantaneous phased coherence weighting factors are used to weight the Green's function to reduce the background noise and improve the signal-to-noise ratio: the instantaneous phase coherence factor (IPCF), and the instantaneous phase weighting factor (IPWF). Experiments are conducted on two aluminum plates with two and four near-field defects, respectively. As a result, the background noise of amplitude images weighted by IPCF and IPWF is less than that of the conventional total focusing method (TFM). In addition, the IPCF image achieves a better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than that of IPWF, and the phase discontinuity in an IPWF image is suppressed through the IPCF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wavenumber imaging with Green's function reconstruction of ultrasonic diffuse fields is used to realize fast imaging of near-surface defects in rails. Ultrasonic phased array has been widely used in industries because of its high sensitivity and strong flexibility. However, the directly measured signal is always complicated by noise caused by physical limitations of the acquisition system. To overcome this problem, the cross-correlations of the diffuse field signals captured by the probe are performed to reconstruct the Green's function. These reconstructed signals can restore the early time information from the noise. Experiments were conducted on rails with near-surface defects. The results confirm the effectiveness of the cross-correlation method to reconstruct the Green's function for the detection of near-surface defects. Different kinds of ultrasonic phased array probes were applied to collect experimental data on the surface of the rails. The Green's function recovery is related to the number of phased array elements and the excitation frequency. In addition, the duration and starting time of the time-windowed diffuse signals were explored in order to achieve high-quality defect images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]