Optimal detection of crack echo families in elastic solids

Optimal detection of a striplike crack residing in an isotropic elastic solid with coarse microstructure by means of ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (NDE) is considered. A physics-based approach to derive an optimal detector, which achieves the theoretical limitations constrained by the underlying physics, is presented. State-of-the-art physical models of crack echoes and of stochastic backscattering from the material structure in elastic solids are introduced and unified with the theory of optimal detection to yield a practically useful nonlinear filter bank implementation of the optimal detector. Monte Carlo simulations of the detection performance for the special case of a striplike crack with uncertain angular orientation are presented in the form of receiver operating characteristics (ROCs). These new results represent the physical limitations for detecting a crack under the stated conditions and serve as performance bounds to which other detectors should be compared. A physics-based generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) detector, which relies on the same nonlinear filter bank as the optimal detector, is also presented for the special case of a striplike crack. A comparison between the optimal and the GLR detectors shows that the GLR detector only slightly reduces the performance. (C) 2003 Acoustical Society of America.