A novel physics-informed framework for reconstruction of structural defects

Abstract The ultrasonic guided wave technology plays a significant role in the field of non-destructive testing as it employs acoustic waves with the advantages of high propagation efficiency and low energy consumption during the inspect process. However, the theoretical solutions to guided wave scattering problems with assumptions such as the Born approximation have led to the poor quality of the reconstructed results. Besides, the scattering signals collected from industry sectors are often noised and nonstationary. To address these issues, a novel physics-informed framework (PIF) for the quantitative reconstruction of defects by means of the integration of the data-driven method with the guided wave scattering analysis is proposed in this paper. Based on the geometrical information of defects and initial results obtained by the PIF-based analysis of defect reconstructions, a deep-learning neural network model is built to reveal the physical relationship between the defects and the noisy detection signals. This learning model is then adopted to assess and characterize the defect profiles in structures, improve the accuracy of the analytical model, and eliminate the impact of the noise pollution in the process of inspection. To demonstrate the advantages of the developed PIF for the complex defect reconstructions with the capability of denoising, several numerical examples are carried out. The results show that the PIF has greater accuracy for the reconstruction of defects in the structures than the analytical method, and provides a valuable insight into the development of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted inspection systems with high accuracy and efficiency in the fields of structural integrity and condition monitoring.