Attenuating materials and TGC function

Carbon-fibres like other composite materials are quickly replacing many metallic-based
materials in industry due to their mechanical properties, strength-to-weight ratio, and
resistance to fracture. These materials behaviour greatly differs from that of conventional
isotropic structural materials due to interfacial characteristics of plies and matrix material,
inclusive the presence of porosity inside. These complex material properties can cause
interferences by structural noise and/or attenuation on ultrasonic signals, which in both
cases, reduces the image quality.

On the other hand, a frequency of 5 MHz is commonly used for inspections of monolithic
solid laminates, providing a good enough resolution. But in the case of carbon-fibre which
has attenuating properties, for higher frequencies, the penetration of the ultrasound signal is
not as good as lower frequencies and detectability becomes reduced with increasing depth.
Therefore, in order to keep using a high frequency of inspection, the gain applied to
captured signals must be modified in function of time (or distance) to receive similar echo
amplitudes from different distances.

This post shows how to improve ultrasonic imaging quality in inspection of attenuating
materials, such as carbon-fibre, using the Time-Gain Compensation (TGC) function which
is used to counteract absorption effects.

As an example, a piece of carbon-fibre is inspected by performing a linear scan with a 128-

elements phased-array transducer of 5 MHz and a SITAU-111 Phased Array System.

Fig. 1. Experimental test arrangement.

The test block has three flat-bottom holes of 3.5 mm diameter which have depths of 12, 8
and 4 mm from the bottom side (Fig. 2). The phase array probe was located on the top side
over the holes position without interfacing wedge (Fig. 1) .

Fig. 2. Carbon-fibre specimen scheme.

The control of the system and data visualization were carried out on MATLAB. The
acquisition range was configured to visualize the total test material depth. The linear scan
(B-scan) was performed with a sub-aperture of 32 elements without deflection which is
displaced to the adjacent element after each trigger over the probe.

When the B-scan is taken using a constant gain value (25 dB), echoes coming from deeper
distances are extremely attenuated due to the material absorption features which is
frequency dependent. Thus for increasing depths, resolution and detectability are reduced.
Furthermore, a subsequent gain increase can make that echo signals coming from a close
region to the transducer become saturated.

Fig. 3. B-scan using a constant gain value.

Now, a simple curve of 4 gain points increasing with depth is configured and enabled into
the TGC function. Note that all holes indications are viewed on the ultrasonic image. This
functionality allows keeping a higher inspection frequency with good enough resolution.
Moreover, the gain curve can be modified with a great flexibility according to material
attenuation features.

Fig. 4. Acquired B-scan with a TGC function.

However, it is important to take into account that the TGC function can be applied down to
reasonable depths, depending on the frequency. At some point, the signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) is so low that applying any TGC only gives noise amplification. Under this
situations, others methods should be applied, i.e. emission of coded pulses, etc.

Noise reduction on ultrasonic images

Electronic equipments, cables and transducers used in NDT are interfered by noise which
severely limits the ability to detect defects. Noise has different origin and nature, i.e., white
noise which is generated by several sources; thermal originated from electronics
components, impulsive noise produced by motors and/or switchers, or power supplies, etc.
Sometimes the inspection process itself can be a source of noise due to residual echoes
generated in a previous shot. It is a common situation where the inspected material has a
low attenuation coefficient and the pulse repetition rate is high (reverberations). Therefore,
when the interference is broadband, it occupies the same bandwidth as the ultrasonic signal,
so its effects can be harmful when signals are weak to detect. As a result, conventional
filtering techniques should be avoided and nonlinear methods which respect the integrity of
the real signals must be applied.

A simple example was carried out as follows: a methacrylate block (100x80x98mm) is

inspected into an immersion system using water as coupling medium (Fig. 1a). The block
has three flat-bottom holes of 5 mm diameters which have depths of 25, 50 and
75mm (Fig. 1b). The phased array probe is moved at constant low-speed (1 mm/s) over the
piece in straight line (Fig. 1c), keeping a constant water path distance between transducer
and block of 52mm (Fig. 1d).
A SITAU 111 system was configured to perform a linear sweep (B-scan) with 32-elements
sub-aperture of for emitting and receiving the ultrasonic beam, deflection is not used. The
active aperture is moved into the adjacent element after each trigger to cover the full phased
array dimension in y-axis direction. Each B-scan is taken by encoded position with 1 mm of
resolution. Moreover, in order to get the C-scan representation gates functionality must be
setup and enabled.

Fig. 1. a)- Experiemental setup. b)- Mathacrylate block scheme. c)- Top view. d)- Side
view.

The switching power supply used to control the immersion system motors in this
experimental arrangement introduces a high level of noise (Electromagnetic Interferences -
EMI). The interferences on the image are due to motors activities which handle the probe,
giving a low quality C-scan image with a high level of noise.
Fig. 2. C-scan image interfered by switching power supply noise.

These interferences could have been reduced by applying an average filter. However, this
processing function requires that noise indications do not have the same position in the N-
acquisitions used for averaging. Otherwise the indication only will be reduced in amplitude
but not totally removed. The EMI interference has a certain spatial diversity that depends
on the noise density (given by the ratio between the number of samples with noise and the
trace length). Thus, the probability that two EMI peaks have the same position in an
average of N-traces usually varies between 1% and 25%, so the effect of averaging is
limited.
 Fig. 3. Image improvement using an average filter of 8 consequtive acquisitions.

The phased array system has a hardware implemented EMI filter algorithm which takes
into advantage the different spatial-temporal distribution of the signal for reducing and
cancelling interferences. This functionality was enabled and configured with 8 consecutive
acquisitions to carry out the algorithm. As a result, false indications disappear when the
EMI filter is turned on. The resulting image is practically the same as if it was obtained
without noise source.
 Fig. 4. Image improvement using the EMI-filter functionality.

This powerful tool available on some phased array technologies allows to simplify tasks to
NDT operators, which frequently have to face up to noise interferences that commonly
appears in industrial and/or automatic inspections and those which are generated due to
reverberations. So this functionality makes easier inspect and evaluate possible defects.

Phased Array Principles of Operation

Phased arrays technologies are used in widely different fields like radar, radiotelescope,
sonar, also in NDT applications.

The phased array technique controls the delays applied to the excitation of each element in
order to emit an ultrasonic pulse which propagates in a certain direction focused at specific
depth.
On the other hand, the received signals of each element are delayed following a focal law
for compounding the echoes generated by reflectors located in the direction of the beam
propagation.

After performing the sum of N-delayed signals (aperture data), the A-scan signal is
obtained and represents the material reflectivity in the propagation direction. The direction
of propagation can be changed by modifying the focusing delays, which allows sweeping
the area of interest with successive shots obtaining a sectorial image or S-scan.
Just a focus in emission can be created because once the array elements have been excited
the wavefront is spread. However, delays in reception can be modified during the
acquisition to make the focus follows the wavefront over its propagation (dynamic
focusing).