Application of morphological filters in ultrasonic flaw detection

Morphological filters were used to detect flaws in ultrasonic signals contained by grain scattering noise (i.e., speckles). In particular, the deterministic and stochastic properties of morphological filters were studied in the context of utilizing different structuring elements. The structuring elements were characterized by their shape, width, and height. The information content of ultrasonic signals was used to design a suitable structuring element to enhance the flaw-to-clutter ratio. The processed experimental results show that morphological filters can detect flaw echoes while the suppressing microstructure noise