Automatic defect recognition for pulsed terahertz inspection of basalt fiber reinforced composites
ISSN: 0332-1649
Article publication date: 4 July 2016
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a system for automatic recognition of defects detected in non-conductive polymer composites using pulsed terahertz imaging.
Design/methodology/approach
On the beginning, non-destructive evaluation of composites using electromagnetic waves in terahertz frequency is shortly introduced. Next automatic defects recognition (ADR) algorithm is proposed, focussing on new features calculation. Dimensionality of features space is reduced by using principal component analysis. Finally, results of basalt fiber reinforced composite materials inspection and identification using artificial neural networks is presented and discussed.
Findings
It is possible to develop ADR system for non-destructive evaluation of dielectric materials using pulsed terahertz technique. New set of features in time and frequency domains is proposed and verified.
Originality/value
ADR in non-destructive testing is utilized in case of digital radiography and ultrasonic testing. Terahertz inspection with pulsed excitation is reported as a source of many useful information about the internal structure of the dielectric material. Up to now ADR based on terahertz non-destructive evaluation systems was not utilized.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by European Commission project HEMOW: Health Monitoring of Offshore Wind Farms (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IRSES-GA-269202). The author would like to express special thanks to Prof. Tomasz Chady and Dr. Krzysztof Goracy from West Pomeranian University of Technology for their support and providing samples.
Citation
Lopato, P. (2016), "Automatic defect recognition for pulsed terahertz inspection of basalt fiber reinforced composites", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 1346-1359. https://doi.org/10.1108/COMPEL-09-2015-0351
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited