High-resolution 3D phased-array imaging of fatigue cracks using piezoelectric and laser ultrasonic system (PLUS)

Abstract This paper reports the effectiveness of a novel imaging system, piezoelectric and laser ultrasonic system (PLUS), for the three-dimensional (3D) imaging of fatigue cracks with a high-resolution. The PLUS combines a piezoelectric transmitter and the two-dimensional (2D) mechanical scanning of a laser Doppler vibrometer, enabling the 2D matrix array with an ultra-multiple number of receiving points for 3D phased array imaging. After describing the principle and 3D imaging algorithm of PLUS, we show the fundamental 3D imaging capability of the PLUS in a flat-bottom-hole specimen with varying the number of receiving points under a fixed large receiving aperture. We then demonstrate that the PLUS with 4275 receiving points (i.e. 75 × 57) achieves high-resolution 3D imaging of a fatigue crack with a high signal-to-noise ratio, providing the outline of the fatigue crack geometry. We also discuss the effectiveness of the ultra-multiple receiving points for suppressing grating lobes and random noise.