Submitted September 2004

A Point Source Correlation Technique for Automatic Discontinuity Identification and Sizing Using Time of Flight Diffraction
by Gokul Swamy,* G. Baskaran and Krishnan Balasubramaniam

ABSTRACT
This paper proposes a technique for automatic discontinuity location and sizing using the ultrasonic time of flight diffraction technique. Here, the crack tips are modeled as point sources of diffracted waves in a homogenous, isotropic medium. The diffraction arcs are modeled using a ray based approach and the modeled arcs are correlated with the experimental B-scan data. The points of high correlation provide information about the location of the crack tips. A statistical echo separation procedure to isolate the diffraction arcs in the B-scan image is discussed. This paper also addresses the issue of application of this time of flight diffraction technique to a thin section (less than 12 mm [0.47 in.]), wherein the echoes from the various sources (lateral wave, back surface reflection, diffraction from crack tips and so on) interfere with each other, making it difficult to identify diffracted signals from the discontinuity tips. Keywords: ultrasonic, time of flight diffraction, diffraction arcs, point source correlation technique, automated sizing and echo separation.

The time of flight diffraction technique offers certain advantages over the conventional pulse/echo test technique. In the pulse/echo technique, the amplitude of the reflected echo from the discontinuity may not be enough for accurate discontinuity sizing on its own. The amplitude is influenced by parameters, other than the size of the reflector, such as the surface roughness, transparency and orientation of the discontinuity. Since the time of flight diffraction technique uses time of flight information to size the discontinuities, it is much more robust than the conventional pulse/echo technique.

BACKGROUND
The time of flight diffraction technique has been applied successfully for testing thick sections (greater than 12 mm [0.47 in.]). The details of the basic principles and applications of time of flight diffraction can be found in Charlesworth and Temple (2001), Dijkstra et al. (1998), EPRI (2004), Silk (1989) and Temple (1983). Time of flight diffraction was originally developed as a technique for accurately sizing and monitoring the through wall extent of discontinuities in steel specimens. Time of flight diffraction was used in conjunction with other ultrasonic discontinuity location techniques such as the shear wave angle beam technique. The technique was later extended to both locate and size discontinuities (Silk, 1984). The time of flight diffraction technique has been widely applied towards crack growth monitoring and discontinuity sizing in diversified applications (Bagarry, 1999; EPRI, 2003; Ogilvy and Temple, 1983; Ogilvy and Temple, 2002; Silk, 1979). The benefits of signal processing in ultrasonic time of flight diffraction testing, including the synthetic aperture focusing technique, were discussed in Silk (1994) and Chang and Hsieh (2002). The effect of noise level on probability of crack detection, using the time of flight diffraction technique, was investigated by Silk (1996). An automated discontinuity detection algorithm using neural network based concepts has also been reported (Lawson and Parker, 1996). A time of flight diffraction signal processing technique using the Hilbert transform to identify superimposed signals has been reported by Baskaran et al. (2004a; 2004b).

INTRODUCTION
The time of flight diffraction technique is a double probe technique used for accurate discontinuity location and sizing. In the time of flight diffraction technique, the crack tips act as secondary sources and the time of flight difference between the diffracted waves from the crack tips is used to size the discontinuity. Figure 1 shows the time of flight diffraction configuration.

Figure 1 Schematic of the time of flight diffraction technique: S is the probe separation; L is the discontinuity depth; D is the discontinuity size; labels 1, 2, 3 and 4 denote the lateral wave, the echo from the top of the discontinuity, the echo from the bottom of the discontinuity and the backwall echo, respectively.

STATISTICAL ECHO FILTERING

In any time of flight diffraction test, the crack tip echoes always occur between the lateral and backwall echoes of the specimen. With decreasing thickness of the specimen, the difference in time of flights between the lateral wave and the reflected bottom surface (backwall) signal of the specimen gets reduced. Hence, there is a possibility of the signals from the various sources (crack tip diffracted, lateral wave echo and backwall echoes) interfering with each other. This presents a difficulty in measuring the time of flight of the tip diffracted waves for discontinuities in thin specimens (thickness less than 12 mm [0.47 in.]). This paper presents a new clustering algorithm to filter out the diffracted echoes from the interfered signal. Although many variants
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* Department of Mechanical Engineering, Centre for Nondestructive Evaluation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai, India. Department of Applied Mechanics, Centre for Nondestructive Evaluation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai, India. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Centre for Nondestructive Evaluation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai 600 036, India; 91 44 2257 8588; fax 91 44 2257 0545; e-mail <balas@iitm.ac.in>.

of the clustering algorithm are available (Duda et al., 2000), the clustering algorithm discussed below exploits the different statistical properties of the diffracted echoes and the lateral and backwall echoes to filter out the diffracted component from the B-scan image. In a B-scan image, the X axis represents the time information and the Y axis gives the transducer position on the surface of the specimen. Due to beam divergence (Charlesworth and Temple, 2001) of the transducer, the tip diffracted discontinuity echoes manifest as arcs in the B-scan image. The time of flight is at a minimum when the crack tip is symmetrically placed between the transmitter and receiver transducers. The statistical echo filtering technique achieves its objective by classifying each pixel from a given column (a single column in a B-scan image represents information pertaining to the entire scan length at a given time) in the B-scan image into two categories defined by pixels that contain information about the signal diffracted from the crack tip (discontinuity pixels) and pixels that are devoid of signals from the crack tip (nondiscontinuity pixels). If the scan length is large compared to the beam spread of the transducer, then the majority of the pixels in any column are nondiscontinuity pixels. Pixels falling into this category are composed of reflected signals from the front and top surface of the specimen at a given time. The pixels falling into the discontinuity pixel category contain interfered signals from the crack tips in addition to the two discussed above. Hence, if we can selectively identify the nondiscontinuity pixels and subtract them from the discontinuity pixels, we are left with information pertaining only to signals received from the crack tips. This transformation can be expressed mathematically as (1) I f = I (i , j ) pd( j )
j =1 i =1 n1 n 2

Figure 2 Time of flight diffraction ray model.

(4)

OA =

H cos ( i )

(5)

tan ( r ) =

x QA cos ( i ) yH

where Cp = the ultrasonic wave velocity in the probe shoe Cs = the specimen. The four equations can be used to solve for the variables OA, AB, i and r. Similarly, four equations can be written for the ray path BC-CD to solve for the four variables BC, CD, i and r. The total time of flight can then be obtained as equaling (6) OA + CD AB + BC + Cp Cs

where I = original B-scan image If = filtered B-scan image pd(j) = value of defining member of class X. In this technique, each pixel in a given column is classified based on its value. The first pixel in any column defines the starting class A. If the value of the next pixel is within the tolerance limit of class A, then this pixel is assigned to class A; otherwise, this pixel creates a new class designated class B. The succeeding pixels are tested to determine if they fall into the tolerance limit of any of the previously defined classes. If they satisfy this tolerance limit, then they are assigned to that class, otherwise they create a new class with a different tolerance zone. Once this process is completed for the entire column of pixels, the class with the highest membership is extracted and the value of the defining member of this class (referred to as class X) is subtracted from the entire column. The above process is repeated for all of the columns. The resulting image is then median filtered with a three by three kernel. The final output is the echo separated image. The discontinuity parameters (location and size) are automatically estimated from the echo separated B-scan, using the point source correlation technique described in the next section.

POINT SOURCE CORRELATION TECHNIQUE

In this model, the transducer is assumed to be a point source. The center of the piston transducer (transmitter) is taken as the origin O. The crack tip (top) is located at the position (X, Y). The separation between the transmitter and receiver probes is 2S and H is the height of the probe shoe as illustrated in Figure 2. The following equations for the ray path OA-AB shown in Figure 2 can be written (2) sin ( i ) Cp = sin ( r ) Cs

(3)

OA cos ( i ) + AB cos ( r ) = y

The diffraction arc is then computed for the given position of the crack tip by moving the transmitter and receiver transducers along the surface of the specimen and finding the time of flight for each scan position. The transducer movement is governed by the scan step resolution (the distance moved by the transducer after every recording). The center of the diffraction arc represents the transducer position when the crack tip is symmetrically placed (OA = CD and AB = BC) between the transmitter and receiver probes. The X, Y coordinate of the center of a diffraction arc in a B-scan image can be uniquely mapped to a certain crack tip position. Simulated arcs are generated corresponding to each point on the B-scan such that the center of the arc is coincident with the given point on the B-scan. To obtain a diffraction arc centered at a given point on the B-scan, we first need to perform an inverse of the procedure described in Equations 2 through 6 to obtain the Y coordinate of the crack tip from the given time of flight information. In doing so, the X coordinate of the crack tip is set equal to S (half the probe separation) to represent the time of flight corresponding to the center of the diffraction arc. Once the Y coordinate of the crack tip is determined, a simulated diffraction arc having its center at the given point on the B-scan can be obtained. The simulated arc for every point on the B-scan is represented as a separate image (referred hereafter as a simulated B-scan) having the same size and X/Y resolution as that of the actual B-scan. Figure 3 shows the simulated B-scans for three different points (A, B and C) of the B-scan corresponding to Figure 4. In Figure 3, black pixels represent the value 1 and white pixels represent the value 0. It can be observed that as the depth of the crack tip increases as anticipated, the curvature of the arc increases. In order to identify the crack tip location, the simulated B-scans are compared with the echo separated B-scans using the correlation function defined by Equation 7. Points of high correlation indicate the superimposition of the simulated arc on the actual diffraction arc.

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The B-scan from a 3.25 mm (0.13 in.) vertical notch and its correlation function are shown in Figure 5. The local maxima from the correlation function are extracted and the crack tip locations can be estimated from the positions of these local maxima. The size of a linearly oriented crack can be estimated using Equation 8, where the size equals (8) Figure 3 Simulated arcs centered at three different points of different depths on the B-scan (depth of A < B < C).

( x 2 x1 ) 2 + ( y 2 y 1 ) 2
y y1 = tan 1 2 x 2 x1

The inclination of the crack can be calculated as (9)

Here, (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) are the grid coordinates where a high correlation is obtained. (a) (b) (c) RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Experiments were performed on a calibration block (10 mm [0.39 in.] thick aluminum sample) having two vertical notches and an inclined notch as shown in Figure 4. The vertical notches have sizes of 3.5 and 6.5 mm (0.14 and 0.26 in.), respectively. The inclined discontinuity has a size of 6 mm (0.24 in.) and is inclined at 30 degrees to the vertical. The notches, (with sharp edges) having a width of 0.5 mm (0.02 in.), were created using electrode discharge machining. Unfocussed 2.25 and 5 MHz transducers of a 6.35 mm (0.25 in.) diameter were used in conducting the scan. Acrylic probe shoes with a central beam distance (OA and CD in Figure 2) of 9.6 mm (0.38 in.) were used. The sampling frequency was set at 50 MHz. The scan step resolution was set at 0.5 mm (0.02 in.). Figure 5a shows the B-scan obtained by scanning over the 3.25 mm (0.13 in.) vertical notch. Figure 5b shows the B-scan after the statistical echo filtering technique, where the diffraction arcs have been separated from the other unwanted echoes (the front wall and backwall echoes). Figure 5c shows the result from the correlation operation. The result indicates a strong correlation at the location of the experimental arcs. The regions where a high correlation is

Figure 4 Calibration sample showing notch configurations: (a) vertical notch of 3.5 mm (0.14 in.); (b) vertical notch of 6.5 mm (0.26 in.); (c) discontinuity of 6 mm (0.24 in.), inclined at 30 degrees to the vertical. (7) cor (i , j ) = B( k , l) Sij ( k , l)
k =1 l =1 nox noy

where cor = the image obtained after correlation of the simulated arcs with the actual B-scan B(k, l) = the value of the echo separated B-scan image at the coordinates (k, l) Sij(k, l) = the value of the simulated B-scan for the position (i, j) at the coordinates (k, l) nox = the size of the B-scan image along the X direction noy = the size of the B-scan image along the Y direction.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Figure 5 Analysis of the B-scan of a 10 mm (0.39 in.) aluminum specimen with a 3.25 mm (0.13 in.) vertical notch: (a) original B-scan (1 = lateral wave; 2 = top diffracted wave; 3 = bottom diffracted wave; 4 = backwall); (b) echo separated image; (c) plot of the correlation function; (d) peak values of the correlation plot; (e) locations of local maxima; (f) crack morphology mapping.
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(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Figure 6 Analysis of the B-scan from a 10 mm (0.39 in.) aluminum specimen with a 6.5 mm (0.26 in.) inclined notch: (a) original B-scan; (b) echo separated image; (c) plot of the correlation function; (d) peak values of the correlation plot; (e) locations of local maxima; (f) crack morphology mapping.
Table 1 Calculated and actual discontinuity parameters Probe Frequency 2.25 MHz 5 MHz Discontinuity a b c a b c Actual Discontinuity Size 3.5 mm (0.14 in.) 6 mm (0.24 in.) 6 mm (0.24 in., inclined) 3.5 mm (0.14 in.) 6 mm (0.24 in.) 6 mm (0.24 in., inclined) Calculated Discontinuity Size 3.3 mm (0.13 in.) 5.8 mm (0.23 in.) 5.6 mm (0.22 in.) 3.6 mm (0.14 in.) 6.1 mm (0.24 in.) 5.7 mm (0.22 in.) Percent Error 4.5 3.2 6.5 4.0 2.2 3.8 Actual Orientation (degrees) 0 0 30 0 0 30 Calculated Orientation (degrees) 0 0 25 0 0 28

obtained are locally thresholded to retain the local maxima. Figure 5d shows the extracted peak values of the correlation image in three dimensional representation. The positions of the local maximas are indicated (with a white cross) on the actual B-scan in Figure 5e. Finally, the crack morphology can be mapped as shown in Figure 5f. The ratio of the normalized amplitudes of the maximas (from the correlation plot) and the corresponding points in the original B-scan was found to be of the order of 10 dB. Figure 6 shows the same sequence of images for the 6.5 mm (0.26 in.) inclined notch. The ratio of the correlation maximas to the corresponding point on the original B-scan was on the order of 15 dB. The experimental results for the test sample for two different transducer frequencies are summarized in Table 1.

that that the point source correlation technique in conjunction with statistical echo filtering can be successfully implemented for automated testing of specimens using the time of flight diffraction technique. This technique also addresses the problems faced in thin section testing and can be used to automatically locate and size discontinuities with an improved degree of accuracy and automation.

REFERENCES
Bagarry, III, Alex A., Ultrasonic Crack Growth Monitoring Using the Satellite Pulse Crack Tip Diffraction Through-wall Depth Sizing Technique, Materials Evaluation, Vol. 57, 1999, pp. 36-38. Baskaran, G., K. Balasubramaniam and C. Lakshmana Rao, Ultrasonic TOFD Flaw Sizing and Imaging in Thin Plates Using Embedded Signal Identification Technique (ESIT), Insight, Vol. 46, 2004a, pp. 537-542. Baskaran, G., K. Balasubramaniam and C. Lakshmana Rao, Development of an Advanced Ultrasonic TOFD System, Journal of Non-destructive Testing & Evaluation, Vol. 3, 2004b, pp. 24-32. Chang, Young-Fo and Cheng-I Hsieh, Time of Flight Diffraction Imaging for Double-probe Technique, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, Vol. 49, No. 6, 2002, pp. 776-783. Charlesworth, J.P. and J.A.G. Temple, Engineering Applications of Ultrasonic Time of Flight Diffraction, second edition, Hertfordshire, England, Research Studies Press, 2001. Dijkstra, J.A., J.E. Deraad and T. Bouma, Time of Flight Diffraction and Acceptance Criteria: A Perfect Team, Materials Evaluation, Vol. 56, 1998, pp. 395-398. Duda, Richard O., Peter E. Hart and David G. Stork, Pattern Classification, second edition, Hoboken, New Jersey, Wiley Interscience, 2000.

CONCLUSION
This technique was tested on a 10 mm (0.39 in.) plate with known discontinuities (both straight and inclined). From the results tabulated in Table 1, the maximum error of the calculated discontinuity size was found to be 6.5% of the actual discontinuity size. The mean error was found to be 4%. It was also determined that the discontinuity sizing accuracy showed slight improvement with an increase in the test frequency. The above approach needs to be extended to analysis of discontinuities in more complex configurations, such as in welded samples. The above algorithm can easily be extended to the analysis of specimens having irregular geometries by making appropriate adjustments to correct for the front and backwall shifts at successive scan positions. The results indicate
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EPRI, Guidelines for the Ultrasonic Time-of-flight Diffraction Inspection of Ligament Cracking in Steam Headers, Palo Alto, California, EPRI, 2003. EPRI, Materials Reliability Program: Non-destructive Examination (NDE) Comparison of Alloy 600/82 and Alloy 690/52 (MRP-133), Palo Alto, California, EPRI, 2004. Lawson, S.W. and G.A. Parker, Automatic Detection of Defects in Industrial Ultrasound Images Using Neural Networks, Proceedings of SPIE, Vol. 2786, 1996, pp. 3747. Ogilvy, J.A. and J.A.G. Temple, Diffraction of Elastic Waves by Cracks: Application to Time-of-flight Inspection, Ultrasonics, Vol. 7, 1983, pp. 259269. Ogilvy, J.A. and J.A.G. Temple, Engineering Applications of Ultrasonic Time of Flight Diffraction, Herefordshire, England, Research Studies Press, 2002.

Silk, M.G., Defect Sizing Using Ultrasonic Diffraction, British Journal of NDT, Vol. 21, No 1, 1979, pp. 1215. Silk, M.G., The Use of Diffraction Based Time of Flight Measurements to Locate and Size Defects, British Journal of NDT, Vol. 26, 1984, pp. 208213. Silk, M.G., The Interpretation of TOFD Data in the Light of ASME XI and Similar Rules, British Journal of NDT, Vol. 31, No. 5, 1989, pp. 242251. Silk, M.G., Benefits of Signal Processing in Ultrasonic Inspection, Insight, Vol. 36, 1994, pp. 776781. Silk, M.G., Estimates of the Probability of Detection of Discontinuities in TOFD Data with Varying Levels of Noise, Insight, Vol. 38, 1996, pp. 3136. Temple, J.A.G., Time-of-flight Inspection: Theory, Nuclear Energy, Vol. 22, 1983, pp. 335-348.

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