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Recently, non-metallic materials which are resilient to corrosion, low cost, and light weight, have been exploited in many industrial sectors such as oil and gas field. A common application of them is in the form of pipes. Despite the advantages, these pipes can be damaged by delamination, defects, holes, and erosion, which may lead to major production failures or even environmental catastrophes. To prevent these issues, non-destructive testing (NDT) of these pipes is required to replace these components in a timely manner. Due to the fact that the traditional NDT methods are mostly effective for metallic pipes, microwave holographic imaging is proposed for inspection of multiple concentric non-metallic pipes. Besides, standardized minimum norm (SMN) is employed to mitigate the depth biasing problem in the proposed imaging technique. In order to reduce the complexity of the imaging system, we aim at using the narrowest possible frequency band by using an array of receiver antennas. The performance of the proposed NDT method is validated through simulation and experimental data in two scenarios including the antennas placed outside the pipes and inside the pipes.
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This content will become publicly available on April 1, 2026
Beyond Robotics, Materials, and Sensing: Unveiling Bioinspiration in Nondestructive Evaluation From “Nature’s NDE Specialists”
While bioinspiration research has led to advancements in fields such as robotics, materials, sensing, and neural computation over the past few decades, its application to more mission-oriented tasks, like nondestructive testing/evaluation (NDT/E), remains largely unexplored. Bioinspiration in NDT/E offers innovative approaches to advance current technologies by drawing inspiration from natural systems that perform similar tasks or processes. This paper explores three unique biological systems—aye-ayes, termites, and red/arctic foxes—referred to as “nature’s NDE specialists.” These organisms have evolved specialized food foraging processes to detect, characterize, assess materials, and detect targets in their environments without disruption, mirroring the goals of NDT/E methods such as tap testing and leakage detection. By studying these specialized processes, we can pioneer new NDT/E technologies or advance the current ones, by means of enhancing reliability, sensitivity, adaptability, and accessibility in challenging environments. Additionally, integrating bioinspiration into NDT/E education can attract a new generation of students, creating opportunities to address the workforce challenges in the NDT/E field.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2320815
- PAR ID:
- 10611997
- Editor(s):
- Dehghan-Niri, Ehsan
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Society for Nondestructive Testing
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Materials Evaluation
- Volume:
- 83
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0025-5327
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 28 to 33
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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