Weak ultrasonic guided wave signal recognition based on one-dimensional convolutional neural network denoising autoencoder and its application to small defect detection in pipelines

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Pipeline failures are often caused by the expansion of small defects. Structural damage to pipelines can lead to major safety accidents. When ultrasonic guided wave (UGW) technology is used for pipeline failure detection, the echoes produced by small defects manifest as weak UGW signals amidst significant noise. The low amplitude of these signals or complete drowning by noise makes them difficult to recognize. This study innovatively introduces a one-dimensional convolutional neural network denoising autoencoder (1DCNN-based DAE) for noise reduction in UGW signals using deep learning. To improve the conventional DAE, the model incorporated the Parametric Rectified Linear Unit (PReLU) activation function and a CNN for enhanced feature extraction, resulting in the proposed 1DCNN-based DAE. The model is trained on an extensive dataset of mixed signals with strong noise and their corresponding clean signals, enabling autonomous denoising in an unsupervised manner. Additionally, this paper proposes the application of the window-shifted power spectrum method for analyzing the denoised signals to identify and locate pipeline defects. The method involves traversing the signal with a window to intercept fragments, calculating their power, and plotting the power spectrum curve. Defects are then located based on the peak positions of this curve. Numerical simulation and experimental signals were used to validate the proposed method. Simulation results showed that the proposed 1DCNN-based DAE effectively improved the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of UGW mixed signals from −9 dB to 21.63 dB, representing an improvement of up to 30.63 dB. Experimental results demonstrated that the method accurately detected weak UGW signals from small defective pipes with a 2 % cross-section loss rate, achieving over 90 % recognition confidence and less than 1.5 % axial positioning error rate. In summary, the proposed 1DCNN-based DAE can effectively improve the SNR of the signal, reduce the noise in the UGW detection signal, and improve the sensitivity of defect identification; the window-shifted power spectrum method has a advantage in the accurate localization of defects.