Composite delamination damage location based on non-orthogonal air-coupled ultrasonic guided waves and Artifact-Reduction damage index

This study focuses on the localization of delamination damage in composite materials. Due to the attenuation of the air-coupled ultrasound at the gas–solid coupling interface, the signal-to-noise ratio of the air-coupled ultrasonic signal is low, which results in low accuracy of damage detection. This paper proposes a method to locate delamination damage in composite materials. This method uses non-orthogonal Air-coupled Ultrasonic Guided Waves for B-scan; an artifact-reduction damage index (ARDI) is designed with the proportion of the scan paths containing damage information to the entire scan paths. These two exquisite designs improve detection accuracy. Finally, the probability of damage occurrence is calculated, and the detection of the damage location is achieved, with the positioning error of the damage being less than 1.5%.