Resolution Enhancement in Ultrasonic TOFD Imaging by Combining Sparse Deconvolution and Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (Sparse-SAFT)

Abstract The shallow subsurface defects are difficult to be identified and quantified by ultrasonic time-of-flight diffraction (TOFD) due to the low resolution induced by pulse width and beam spreading. In this paper, Sparse-SAFT is proposed to improve the time resolution and lateral resolution in TOFD imaging by combining sparse deconvolution and synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT). The mathematical model in the frequency domain is established based on the l 1 and l 2 norm constraints, and the optimization problem is solved for enhancing time resolution. On this basis, SAFT is employed to improve lateral resolution by delay-and-sum beamforming. The simulated and experimental results indicate that the lateral wave and tip-diffracted waves can be decoupled with Sparse-SAFT. The shallow subsurface defects with a height of 3.0 mm at the depth of 3.0 mm were detected quantitatively, and the relative measurement errors of flaw heights and depths were no more than 10.3%. Compared to conventional SAFT, the time resolution and lateral resolution are enhanced by 72.5 and 56% with Sparse-SAFT, respectively. Finally, the proposed method is also suitable for improving resolution to detect the defects beyond dead zone.