Automated parameter extraction for ultrasonic flaw analysis

To make a decision on the nature of a defect contained within a weld specimen, it is necessary to reliably detect suspect regions in the ultrasonic inspection images, derive geometrical parameters such as shape, size, position and orientation from each indication and, finally, collate these parameters intelligently by associating each indication with a possible defect type. This procedure is discussed for the case when the segmentation of indications and parameter calculation procedures are performed by the authors´ NDT Workbench facility. A real-flaw example, inspected by a series of probes, is used to demonstrate the final defect categorisation decision. The indication parameters derived during this process can be used either to aid the manual interpreter or as part of a knowledge based system (KBS)