Ultrasonic Guided Wave Imaging Method Based on Particle Swarm Optimization for Composite Damage Monitoring

Abstract

Due to the dispersion and multi-mode characteristics of ultrasonic guided waves, many current imaging techniques based on ultrasonic guided waves are prone to artifacts and large imaging spots when they are used for structural damage detection. Therefore, an ultrasonic guided wave imaging method based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed in this paper to transform the problem of damage imaging into a problem of damage source search. A fitness function for damage imaging location is proposed. The smaller the difference between the travel time of the scattering signal and the travel time of the particle, the larger the amplitude assigned to the particle. The total amplitude of the particle after superposition of all sensing paths is used as the fitness function. The particle with the largest total amplitude is searched for by the PSO algorithm to achieve damage localization. The experimental results show that the proposed method has successfully detected the crack damage of composite and achieved a better imaging effect. It has higher positioning accuracy compared to other imaging methods.