Multipath exploitation for enhanced defect imaging using Lamb waves

This paper presents a multipath exploitation approach for defect imaging in thin-walled structures using Lamb waves under the sparse reconstruction framework. An image of the defects in the region of interest is obtained by inverting a multipath propagation model via group sparse reconstruction. This permits accurate imaging of regions close to the structure boundary without the introduction of ‘false’ defects or ghosts. Real-data measurements of defects close to the edge of an aluminum plate are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the multipath exploitation scheme.