Trends in the use of AI and data science for wave analysis, inverse problems, and practical nondestructive evaluation

Abstract

In recent years, the utilization of AI and data science has been attracted in various engineering fields. This trend is also evident in the field of nondestructive evaluation (NDE), which is essential for structural maintenance. The ultimate goal of NDE is to evaluate the presence of defects inside structures, including their location, and size. Therefore, in the fields of the ultrasonic NDE, the ultrasonic NDE problems reduced to be inverse problems to determine the location and characteristics of defects by analyzing the scattered waveform data obtained from measurement experiments. Academic studies about NDE can be mainly classified into three categories: forward analysis, which involves numerical simulations to understand elastic wave propagation behavior ; inverse analysis, which reconstructs defects and evaluates material constants by utilizing or interpreting the results of forward analysis ; and practical applications of NDE. In this paper, we investigate recent AI and data science trends, as well as their practical applications to these three categories.