Ultrasonic array imaging of multilayer structures using full matrix capture and extended phase shift migration

Multilayer structures have been widely used in industrial fields, and non-destructive evaluation of these structures is of great importance to assure their quality and performance. Recently, ultrasonic array imaging using full matrix capture, e.g. the total focusing method (TFM), has been shown to increase sensitivity to small defects and improve imaging resolution in homogeneous media. However, it cannot be applied to multilayer structures directly, due to the sound velocity variation in different layers and because refraction occurs at layer interfaces, which gives rise to difficulties in determining the propagation path and time. To overcome these problems, an extended phase shift migration (EPSM) is proposed for the full matrix imaging of multilayer structures in this paper. Based on the theory of phase shift migration for monostatic pulse-echo imaging, full matrix imaging using EPSM is derived by extrapolating the wavefields in both transmission and reception, and extended to the multilayer case. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by full matrix imaging of a two-layer structure with side-drilled holes conducted both in the simulation and the experiment. The results verify that the proposed algorithm is capable of full matrix imaging of a layered structure with a high resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. For comparison, full matrix imaging using the TFM with root-mean-squared velocity is also performed, and the results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is superior to the TFM in improving both the image quality and resolution.