Detecting and Locating Defects in Coated Metallic Structures Using Arrays of Small Microwave Resonators

A. M. ALI, O. M. RAMAHI

Abstract


A sensor based method for detecting and locating defects and/or flaws in coated metallic surfaces is investigated. This method involves non-destructive testing and evaluation of such surfaces under coating layers, using arrays of small microwave resonators. Four numerical sensor models were built for structural health monitoring of coated aluminum structures. Considering the implemented resonators were designed to resonate at different frequencies and arranged in an array scheme, not only were defects identified but also their position, direction, and length. For the reason that each resonator in the array of the proposed sensors was designed to work at a specific frequency for defect-free structures, the sensors’ overall response patterns are subject to perturbation based on the existence of defects and/or flaws in their surrounding environment. This pattern change in the data collected by the proposed models makes detecting and locating defects using pattern-recognition models a practical solution. Consequently, the second contribution of this work is integrating artificial intelligent models with the proposed sensors for detecting and locating defects automatically.

doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/377


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