Nonlinear Ultrasonic Detection Method for Delamination Damage of Lined Anti-Corrosion Pipes Using PZT Transducers

Abstract

Lined anti-corrosion pipes are widely used in oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical industries. However, defects, especially delamination, may occur in the production and service of pipes which result in safety accidents. Based on nonlinear ultrasonic theory, this paper studied the delamination detection method using the nonlinear harmonics for lined anti-corrosion pipes. The response characteristics of the anti-corrosion pipe were obtained through a sweep sine response experiment and the preferred excitation frequency was determined. The Wavelet Packet transform and Hilbert⁻Huang transform is applied for signal process and feature extraction. Then, a series of experiments were carried out and the results were analyzed and discussed. The results showed that a second-order and third-order nonlinear coefficient increased with the delamination damage. The amplitude of second-harmonic is much stronger than the third-order one. The mean squared error of the nonlinear coefficient, which was processed by Wavelet Packet transform and Hilbert⁻Huang transform, is smaller than wavelet packet transform and Discrete Fourier transform or processed only Hilbert⁻Huang transform. The higher harmonics can describe the change of delamination damage, which means that the nonlinear ultrasonic detection method could use for damage detection of anti-corrosion pipe. The nonlinear higher-harmonic is sensitive to delamination damage. The nonlinear ultrasonic method has the potential for damage detection for lined anti-corrosion pipes.

Keywords

• lined anti-corrosion pipes
• delamination damage
• nonlinear ultrasonic
• wavelet packet transform
• Hilbert–Huang transform