An experimental feasibility study of pipeline corrosion pit detection using a piezoceramic time reversal mirror

作者：Guofeng Du, Qingzhao Kong, Fanghong Wu, Jiabiao Ruan, Gangbing Song · 发表于：Smart Materials and Structures · 年份：2016 · DOI：10.1088/0964-1726/25/3/037002 · 被引用次数：77 · 研究领域：Ultrasonics and Acoustic Wave Propagation、Geophysical Methods and Applications、Seismic Waves and Analysis

Corrosion pits on pipelines lead to the formation of small holes, which cause further pipeline damage and even catastrophic consequences. Since many pipelines are located underground, the detection of corrosion pits on pipelines in real time is still an engineering challenge. In this paper, an experimental feasibility study on pipeline corrosion pit detection using the time reversal technique with a piezoceramic transducer as a time reversal mirror was investigated. A specimen of steel pipeline section was fabricated with an artificially drilled hole, which was to mimic a corrosion pit. By gradually increasing the depth of the hole, the evolution of the corrosion pit on the pipeline was simulated and studied. Two piezoceramic transducers were employed to generate a stress wave to propagate along the pipeline and to detect the propagated stress wave. With both the properties of sensing and actuating functions, a piezoceramic transducer was used as a time reversal mirror, which first detected the propagated stress wave signal and then sent ‘back’ the time-reversed signal as a propagating stress wave. With the inherent auto-focusing property of the time reversal technique, the detected time-reversed stress wave had a distinct focused peak. A corrosion pit on a pipeline, as a structural defect, reduces the energy of the focused signal received by the piezoceramic sensor and the attenuation ratio of the focused signal depends strongly on the degree of corrosion depth. Experimental...