Deep convolutional neural network for weld defect classification in radiographic images

The quality of welds is critical to the safety of structures in construction, so early detection of irregularities is crucial. Advances in machine vision inspection technologies, such as deep learning models, have improved the detection of weld defects. This paper presents a new CNN model based on ResNet50 to classify four types of weld defects in radiographic images: crack, pore, non-penetration, and no defect. Stratified cross-validation, data augmentation, and regularization were used to improve generalization and avoid over-fitting. The model was tested on three datasets, RIAWELC, GDXray, and a private dataset of low image quality, obtaining an accuracy of 98.75 %, 90.255 %, and 75.83 %, respectively. The model proposed in this paper achieves high accuracies on different datasets and constitutes a valuable tool to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of quality control processes in the welding industry. Moreover, experimental tests show that the proposed approach performs well on even low-resolution images.