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Wavelet Transform Analysis of Guided Wave Testing

on Coated Pipes
by Shiuh-Kuang Yang*, Ping-Hung Lee*, Chi-Jen Huang and Jyin-Wen Cheng

ABSTRACT

The torsional mode of guided wave, T(0,1), has

been applied to detect discontinuities in pipelines,
especially in the cases of coated, elevated and
buried pipes. The signals of minor corrosions
would be covered by the noise, unfortunately,
because the coated material and buried medium
always induce a strong attenuation of the guided
wave. The main objective of this study was to
discuss the effect of bitumen coating on guided
wave tests by the experimental and signal
processing techniques, based on the use of continuous wavelet transform. The experiments were first
performed to collect the reflected signal of the
discontinuities on two 152.4 mm steel pipes. The
results showed that the bitumen coating seriously
attenuated the signals of every discontinuity on
the test pipes. The continuous wavelet transform
was then used to perform a distance-frequency
analysis in order to achieve the success of the
minor discontinuity detection. In conclusion, the
discussion of the effect of the bitumen coating on
guided wave propagation and useful signal
processing techniques will help to increase the
sensitivity of discontinuity detection on coated
pipe.
KEYWORDS: guided wave, torsional mode,
bitumen, wavelet transform.

* Department of Mechanical and Electro-mechanical Engineering, National

Sun Yat-sen University, No. 70, Lienhai Rd., Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424,
R.O.C.; 886 7 5252000, EXT 4270; e-mail
d933020006@student.nysu.edu.tw.
Taiwan Metal Quality Control Corporation, 7F, No. 702, Hanmin Rd.,
Xiaogang Dist., Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424, R.O.C.
Cepstrum Technology Corporation, 6F-3, No. 151, Ren Ti St., Ling Ya
Dist., Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424, R.O.C.

Introduction

Pipelines are widely used in the gas, refinery, chemical and

petrochemical industries as a means of transporting gases and
liquids over long distances to users. Discontinuities, like
cracks and corrosions, are often found on the outer or inner
surface of pipelines. Without discontinuity control and regular
inspection, discontinuities can cause failure of pipeline
systems. Pipeline coating systems have always used discontinuity control to protect the pipe surfaces under the corrosive
environment. The discontinuities occur on pipes, however, in
the wake of coating degradation and failure, and can sometimes lead to serious thinning of wall thickness. In addition,
injuries, fatalities and environmental damage can follow. To
deal with the crisis, there is a quick and reliable technique for
the detection of corrosion under insulation the guided wave
technique of ultrasonic testing (UT).
The guided wave technique uses an ultrasound traveling
along a pipe, and is commonly used to provide the full examination of long sections of pipe. The changes in the response
signal of the ultrasound indicate the presence of an impedance change in the pipe. The shape and axial location of
discontinuities and features in the pipe are also determined by
reflected signals and their arrival times. Since the guided
waves are cylindrical Lamb waves along the pipe, no lateral
spreading can occur and the propagation is essentially onedimensional. There has been a considerable amount of work
on the use of guided waves for pipe inspection (Rose et al.,
1996; Alleyne et al., 2001; Mudge, 2001; Cawley et al., 2003).
The guided wave application has been extended to buried
and/or coated pipes, which are materials that are necessary to
the manufacturing processes in the refinery, chemical and
petrochemical industries. Previous research has shown that
the typical loss rates at a test frequency were from 3 to
10 dB/m (Cawley et al., 2001). The technique of reducing
the test frequency was able to diminish the effect of attenuation when testing partially buried pipes. The effects of the
buried material on the pipe have been previously studied
(Cheng et al., 2006). Loosely bonded soil caused lower attenuation than tightly bonded concrete on the T(0,1) mode
propagation. The buried pipes were always coated with a
bitumen coating, located between the pipe and the soil. It has
previously been shown that the bitumen coating was responsible for a reduction of the range of propagation of the signal
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(Demma et al., 2005). Guided waves have also been proven to

screen the full length of the gas pipeline that was unable to be
inspected by the intelligent pig inspection system, which is a
system that is used to measure pipe thickness along the
pipeline (Ledesma et al., 2009). A portion of the pipeline was
above ground, while another portion of it was immersed
under water and an additional portion was buried in soil. This
previous study showed that the use of guided waves ensured
complete coverage of the line and achieved uniform full attention at all locations, including the immersed and buried
sections. The choice of guided wave modes was another
manner to diminish the effect of attenuation. The use of
torsional waves allowed a greater length of pipe to be
inspected for each transducer ring setup position; in particular, when the pipe was coated with the most attenuating bituminous-type coating (Alleyne et al., 2009).
As for the studies of plates and cylinders coated with a
viscoelastic layer, guided wave propagation theories have been
studied for practical nondestructive testing (NDT). The
effects on the propagation of Lamb waves and shear horizontal waves in metallic plates coated with viscoelastic layers
have previously been studied (Simonetti et al., 2004). In
addition to the investigation of phase velocity and attenuation
dispersion curves of the bilayered plate model, the relationship between the mechanical energy, guided wave attenuation
and acoustic properties of the viscoelastic layer were also
investigated when considering two different material attenuation regimes. For a metallic plate coated with low-loss layers, a
mode-jumping phenomenon occurred. The coupling mechanism led to the jumping of the trajectories of the bilayer
dispersion curves among several asymptotic modes in the plot
of the phase velocity dispersion curve. For a metallic plate
coated with highly attenuative layers, such as a steel plate
coated with a bitumen layer, the phase velocity dispersion
curve of the fundamental shear horizontal mode (SH0 mode)
in the bilayered plate oscillated around that of the SH0 mode
in the steel plate as the frequency increased. The guided wave
attenuation also exhibited periodic peaks that occured around
the through-thickness resonance frequencies of the
unclamped viscoelastic layer when it was considered to be
elastic.
In addition, the phase velocity dispersion curves of a
hollow tube filled with viscoelastic bitumen have previously
been reported (Cawley et al., 2003). The guided wave attenuation maxima occured at the cut-off frequencies of the equivalent elastic filled tube. Using the global matrix technique, a
multilayer, hollow cylinder model that includes viscoelastic
layers was developed to describe the propagation of the longitudinal modes on the pipe (Barshinger et al., 2004).
Moreover, a semi-analytical finite element technique was used
for tracing the phase velocity and attenuation dispersion
curves for both axisymmetric and flexural modes for a hollow
cylinder with viscoelastic coating (Mu et al., 2008). This
previous study addressed some interesting observations on
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the attenuation of torsional modes, such as the attenuation of

the T(n,1) mode increases monotonically with an increase in
frequency. By understanding the dispersion characteristics of
the multilayer cylinder model, it helps inspectors to establish
an optimal strategy for detecting discontinuities on a pipe
coated with viscoelastic material using the guided wave testing
technique.
Meanwhile, the same semianalytical finite element technique was used to study three multilayer cylinder cases,
including a copper tube filled with bitumen, a steel pipe
coated with a thin layer of bitumen and a steel strand
embedded in concrete structures (Marzani et al., 2008). In
the cases of the elastic steel pipe coated with a thin layer of
bitumen, the study declared that the phase and energy
velocity dispersion curves of the bitumen coated pipe were
similar to the dispersion curves of an elastic steel pipe without
any coating on it. In the case of the copper tube filled with
bitumen, the dispersion curves of the fundamental torsional
mode for the undamped system (tube filled with elastic
bitumen) were compared with those of the damped system
(tube filled with viscoelastic bitumen). In the low frequency
region of the phase velocity dispersion curve, the fundamental
torsional modes for the two systems matched. The attenuation for the fundamental torsional T(0,1) mode increased
with the frequency exponentially from zero frequency to the
cut-off frequency of the second torsional T(0,2) mode.
To understand the interaction between the guided waves
and the discontinuities, authors have previously discussed the
quantitative study of the reflection of the T(0,1) mode from a
crack-like discontinuity, a notch-like discontinuity and a
stepped notch-like discontinuity in pipes in a wide frequency
range (Demma et al., 2003; Demma et al., 2004). By testing
under more than one frequency, it would be possible to avoid
missing the response of discontinuities due to destructive
interference. However, when guided waves propagate on the
pipe coated with bitumen, the strength of the signals reflected
from a minor discontinuity would be attenuated and the
signal-to-noise ratio would be reduced at the same time.
Therefore, more advanced signal processing techniques are
required in order to enhance the weak signal of the discontinuity, and then the signals of the discontinuities are extracted
from the noise signals.
The wavelet transform technique has become popular in
many different types of signal processing techniques and has
been applied to recent NDT applications. Previously, several
adopted wavelet transforms to analyze the transient waves
propagating in a dispersive medium and the results provide a
clear exposition of the signal during the dispersion process
(Onsay et al., 1994). Other authors also conducted a study
that used a time-frequency analysis with wavelet transforms in
the case of wave propagation in 3D composites and obtained
a better interpretation of the signal (Leymarie et al., 2000). As
for the pipe inspection, another previous study used a single
transducer to excite the L(0,1) and F(1,1) modes on the pipe

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Group velocity, Vgr (m/s)

5000
4000
T(0,1)b
3000

T(0,1)c

T(0,2)c

2000
1000
0

Excitation zone
fT(0,2)c = 93.5 kHz
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Frequency (kHz)

(a)

U77

78

Radial position (mm)

Dispersion Curve of the Bitumen Coated Pipe

As for the inspection of the coated pipe, a trial-and-error technique was the only way to get the optimal parameters,
including wave mode and operating frequency, without the
information about the dispersion curves of coated pipes.
Knowledge of the dispersion curves and wave structures of
the modes on the pipe is relevant in guided wave pipe inspection for optimal performance, including precise location of the
discontinuities and low attenuation of the propagating modes.
Because the frequency under examination was 21 to 32 kHz,
the group velocity dispersion curves were traced for a
152.4 mm steel pipe for bare case and coated case with a
2 mm elastic bitumen coating. The results of the dispersion
curves were used to describe the propagating behavior of the
fundamental torsional mode T(0,1) in the viscoelastic
bitumen coated pipe.
To trace the group velocity dispersion curve and the wave
structure of the wave modes on coated pipes, modeling
software was used, based on the global matrix technique
(Pavlakovic et al., 1997). The results are shown in Figure 1. It
should be noted that the blue dashed line T(0,1)b represents
the torsional mode for bare pipe and the other higher order
torsional modes are not shown because their cut-off frequencies are higher than 120 kHz. The black solid lines T(0,1)c
and T(0,2)c represent the torsional modes for the bitumen
coated pipe. In addition, the wave structures of T(0,1)c were
dominated by the profile of the tangential displacement U
through the wall thickness and the axial displacement Uz and
the radial displacement Ur are zero in this mode. U77 and
U86 are the tangential displacement of the particle on the
inner wall and the outer wall of the pipe, respectively.
Figure 1a shows the group velocity dispersion curves below
120 kHz; the T(0,1)b mode is non-dispersive across the
whole frequency range and its group velocity always keeps at
3260 m/s. Similarly, the T(0,1)c mode propagates at average
group velocity around 3145 m/s within the blue window box
at the frequency range from 21 to 32 kHz. The window box is
the frequency range of interest in this paper and the dashed
circle is the cut-off frequency of T(0,2)c, which is 93.5 kHz.
The wave structures of the T(0,1)c mode are shown in
Figures 1b and 1c at frequencies of 21 and 32 kHz. The top of
vertical axis is the 77 mm inner radius of the pipe and the
bottom of the vertical axis is the 86 mm outer radius of the

coated layer. The wave structures normalized with respected

to their maximum value of displacement U86 show the
displacement fields through the wall thickness at different
radial positions. Meanwhile, the displacement U77 of the

Ur
Uz

80

U
82

84
U86

86
-1

T(0,1)c, f = 21 kHz

(b)

Radial position (mm)

with a lot of coherent noise (Siqueira et al., 2004). After using

the wavelet transforms, they improved signal-to-noise ratio
successfully and gave the indications clearly. Furthermore,
researchers have performed an automatic classification framework for guided wave inspection on pipes by the waveletbased multi-feature analysis (Rizzo et al., 2005). According to
the results of literature reviews, wavelet transforms have to be
adopted in this study to extract the small signal reflected from
the minor discontinuity under the attenuative coated material
when torsional mode T(0,1) was used as propagating mode.

78

Ur

80

Uz
U

82

84

86
-1

(c)

T(0,1)c, f = 32 kHz

Figure 1. Group velocity and displacement data: (a) dispersion

curves of T(0,1) mode for a bare 152.4 mm pipe (blue dashed
line) and a 2 mm elastic bitumen coated pipe (black solid
line); (b) the wave structure of T(0,1)c mode at 21 kHz and (c)
at 32 kHz.

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particle on the inner radius of the pipe shows the minimum

value both in Figures 1b and 1c. At a high frequency of 32
kHz, the normalized tangential displacement U86 through
the bitumen coating is obviously dominant, in contrast to low
frequency of 21 kHz for which the normalized tangential
displacement U77 is almost the same as U86. That is to say,
the T(0,1)c mode leaks more energy into the bitumen coating
and is attenuated more seriously at 32 kHz than at 21 kHz.

Continuous Wavelet Transform

Wavelet transforms break signals into components that vary
in scaling and translation of the original mother wavelet
function. To scale a wavelet means to stretch the mother
wavelet function and to translate a wavelet means to move the
wavelet function along the X axis, which usually indicates the
time aspect. The continuous wavelet transform is achieved
through continued scaling and translation of the mother
wavelet function along the length of a signal and consequently
produces a time-scale view of the signal. For a given signal f(t)
in the time domain, the continuous wavelet transform is the
inner product of the signal with a series of wavelet functions
depending on the scale parameter a and the translation
parameter b, as defined by the following equation:
(1)

Wf ( a, b ) =

1
a

t b
f (t )
dt
a

where
(t) indicates a mother wavelet
* indicates its complex conjugation.
Wf (a,b) is a wavelet coefficient for the wavelet (t).
Wf (a,b) measures the variation of the signal when the time t
is equal to b. The higher the correlation between the
frequency of the wavelet and the frequency of the partial
signal, the larger the coefficient. A large value of scale stands
for a big window with a widespread view of the signal with
lower resolution; a small value of scale represents a small
window with a detailed view of the signal with more accurate
resolution. The continuous wavelet transform features the full
provision of the signal information and describes the energy
distribution of the signal over the time-scale domain.

(a)

Experiment
An experiment was designed to investigate the guided wavebased inspection technique for detecting the discontinuities of
the wall on a bitumen coated pipe.

(b)

Experimental Setup

(c)

Figure 2. (a) The guided wave testing system that was used;
(b) the schematic diagram of a typical guided wave testing
configuration; (c) the coordinate system to describe the axial
and circumferential location.
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The experimental instrument was a pipe screening system

that consisted of an ultrasonic guided wave transducer ring, an
instrument for the generation and reception of the guided
wave signal, power supply, computer and cables, as shown in
Figure 2a (Guided Ultrasonics Ltd., 2005). To perform
guided wave testing, the transducer ring was first mounted on
the pipe, as shown in Figure 2b. After connecting the ring, the
instrument and the computer, signals with different frequencies were used to generate the torsional mode T(0,1) propagating forward and backward on the pipe. The guided waves
were reflected by features such as bends, supports, welds and
discontinuities, while the reflected signals were received by
the same transducer ring. All features in the scanning section
of pipe were detected at the same measurement and the

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TABLE 1

List of the artificial discontinuities on pipe 1.

Discontinuity
AD1
AD2
AD3
AD4

Axial location
(mm)

Circumferential
location ()

Circumferential
length (mm)

Depth
(mm)

Axial extent
(mm)

Cross-section
change

3500
4000
4500
4500

0
0
0
270

100
50
100
30

3.5
3.5
2
6

30
30
30
30

10%
5%
5%
5%

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 3. The profile of test Pipe 1 and Pipe 2: (a) the transducer ring is mounted 1.5 m from End 1 on Pipe 1; (b) the
geometry parameters of the artificial discontinuity on Pipe 1;
(c) the transducer ring is mounted 3.24 m from End 3 on Pipe
2; (d) the geometry parameters of the natural discontinuity
on Pipe 2.

results were presented by an A-scan and C-scan display. The

coordinate system used in the A-scan and C-scan display is
shown in Figure 2c. The circumferential location was
measured in a counter-clockwise direction, if facing the
forward direction of wave propagation, and the axial location
was measured from the distance between the transducer ring
and the feature.
Two samples, Pipe 1 and Pipe 2, of 152.4 mm Schedule
40 steel pipes with partial bitumen coating on the pipe wall
were manufactured. Experiments were performed in the
following cases: (a) four artificial discontinuities on bare Pipe
1; (b) three natural discontinuities on bare Pipe 2; (c) four
artificial discontinuities on bitumen coated Pipe 1; (d) three
natural discontinuities on bitumen coated Pipe 2. The Pipe 1
sample had two pipe ends, three welds and four artificial
discontinuities (notches) on it. The whole length of Pipe 1
was 6 m and Figure 3a shows the positions of various features
on it. Between Weld 2 and Weld 3, four artificial discontinuities, labeled AD1, AD2, AD3 and AD4, were machined on
the section. The geometrical parameters of the artificial
discontinuity are described in Figure 3b. The four artificial
discontinuities had different dimensions in circumferential
length and depth, but the same axial extent. Table 1 gives the
dimension and location of the artificial discontinuities. The
artificial discontinuities AD1, with 20% of the circumference
of the pipe and 50% of the wall thickness, was machined on
the axial location 2000 mm from the transducer ring.
Compared with the entire cross-sectional area of the pipe,
AD1 induced a 10% change of cross-sectional area and the
rest of the discontinuities induced an approximate 5% change
of cross-sectional area. The distance between the axial
location of the three discontinuities AD1, AD2 and AD3 was
500 mm and they were distributed distributed on the top of
pipe and ordered from AD1 to AD3. The AD4 was machined
on the same axial location with AD3, but with 270 of circumferential location.
To get the realistic result of the guided wave testing, the
Pipe 2 sample was formed by welding a new pipe and an old
pipe cut from one non-functional pipeline in the refinery
factory. Because the coated bitumen of the old pipe was
degraded during the period of service, the corrosive environment induced some wall loss on the pipe. As shown in Figure
3c, Pipe 2 has two pipe ends, four welds and three natural
discontinuities distributed on the pipe. The section from
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End 3 to Weld 5 is a new pipe and the rest is the old one.
When the old bitumen coating was removed between Welds
5 and 6, three natural discontinuities (general corrosions),
labeled ND1, ND2 and ND3, with different dimensions were
revealed on the section. The depth parameter D of the natural
discontinuity is described in Figure 3d. The three natural
discontinuities on Pipe 2 were marked and photographed, as
shown in Figure 4. A profilometer was also used to measure
the depth on the chalked area for the discontinuity map of the
three natural discontinuities. As shown in Figure 4, the
discontinuity maps were plotted as a contour image from the
data measured by the profilometer. The horizontal axis of the
map indicates the axial location calculated from the middle of

the transducer ring position, and the vertical axis of the map
indicates the circumferential location around the pipe. Zero
degrees refers to the topmost point of the pipe. The color at
each point is associated with the measured depth, with the
lighter color corresponding to the greater depth, and the dark
color corresponding to the lesser one. The discontinuity maps
showed the variation of the wall thickness loss in the three
areas of ND1, ND2 and ND3. By comparing Figures 4a, 4b
and 4c, the ND1 with a maximum depth of 3.95 mm was
identified as severe corrosion, the ND2 with a maximum
depth of 2.39 mm was classified as minor corrosion and the
ND3 with maximum depth of 3.34 mm was classified as
medium corrosion.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 4. The discontinuity map measured by the profilometer. Results show the photo and map of (a) ND1; (b) ND2; (c) ND3.
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TABLE 2

Frequency regimes and frequencies used in the 152.4 mm pipe.

Frequency regime
Frequency (kHz)

0.0
21

1.0
24

One parameter, frequency regime, associated with the

pipe dimensions and the operating frequency was used to
normalize the effect of pipe dimensions. The corresponding
actual frequencies of the frequency regimes are shown in
Table 2. To excite the guided wave T(0,1) mode on the
152.4 mm pipe in the experiment, the frequency regime of
excitation signals were specified automatically by the
modeling software as a value from 0.0 to 4.0.
Reflection of Discontinuities on Bare Pipe

Figure 5a shows the complete signal of all the features on Pipe

1 without partial coated material. Figure 5b shows the partial
signal magnified between Weld 2 and Weld 3 to get a detailed
view of the discontinuity signals. In Figure 5a, the lower part
shows the A-scan display, the upper part is the C-scan display
and the schematic diagram of the pipe system under test is
presented by a gray band in the middle of the figure. The
processed data of the A-scan were plotted in black for the
T(0,1) mode and in red for the F(1,2) mode. The green bar is
the dead zone of the measuring distance. The signal in the
dead zone at zero distance could not be collected. The gray
area next to the dead zone is the near field of the transducer
ring. The amplitude of the reflected signal in the near field
could not be measured for calculation. The horizontal axis of
the A-scan display is the distance from the position of the
transducer and the vertical scale is the reflected amplitude in
mill-volt. There are also two dashed lines called distance
amplitude correction (DAC) lines; one of these is the weld
level DAC and the other is the call level DAC. The image of
the C-scan display showed the circumferential distribution of
the reflected signals around the pipe. In the C-scan display,
the X axis denotes the distance from the position of the transducer, and the Y axis denotes the circumferential location
around the pipe. The images of the C-scan display, processed
by imaging algorithms, are composed of the cross-section
changes resulting from focusing the energy at a different axial
distance. As shown in the A-scan display in Figure 5a, two
weld reflections, AW2 and AW3, are clearly identified in the
forward direction and are used to adjust the weld level DAC.
The reflection AW1 of Weld W1 is exceptionally small
because it was located in the near field. Between Weld W2
and W3, there are three big indications along the pipe. The
first two peaks, D1 and D2, represent the reflected signal of
discontinuities, AD1 and AD2. The third sign, D3 + D4, is the
reflected signal of discontinuities AD3 and AD4. Observing
the reflected signal of the artificial discontinuities, one can see
that the amplitudes are large and the shapes are isolated. It is

2.0
27

3.0
30

4.0
34

because all four artificial discontinuities have the same axial

extent equaling 30 mm, which is approximately 25% of the
wavelength of the incident wave T(0,1) mode. The reflected
signals were larger than expected. Moreover, the regular
geometry of the four artificial discontinuities caused the
shapes of the isolated reflection. The three signals were also
characterized by strong red signals where the red signal is
significant compared to the black signal and the ratio of the
amplitude of red to black signals is 25, 44 and 43%, respectively. From the results of the three indications in the C-scan
display, one can calculate an approximate estimate of circumferential distribution around the pipe. The color band of the
sign D1 was distributed from 320 to 70 in the circumferential
location. The sign D2 shows the distribution from 340 to 40
in the circumferential location. The most dominant color
band, distributed from 230 to 40 in the circumferential
location, belongs to the sign D3 + D4.
The comparisons of the results for the four cases previously mentioned were plotted as zoomed views in Figures
5be, when the operating frequency regime was equal to 2.
The W5 and W6 signs shown in Figures 5c and 5e represented the location of the welds on Pipe 2 where the distances
from the transducer were 1.4 and 3.6 m, respectively. The
natural discontinuities at the location between W5 and W6
are referred to as ND1, ND2 and ND3. The dominant red
signal of the reflection of ND1 revealed that the ND1 is a
localized discontinuity around the circumference of the pipe.
Unlike the reflection of the artificial discontinuities on Pipe 1,
the natural discontinuities on Pipe 2 led to smaller amplitudes
of the reflected signal and distributed shapes along the axial
direction. Due to the three natural discontinuities carrying
various axial extents with an irregular change of wall thickness,
the reflected signals were smaller than expected. In addition,
the disorder geometry of the three natural discontinuities
caused the shapes of the irregular reflection.
Reflection of Discontinuities on Coated Pipe

When the bitumen coatings were wrapped on partial sections

of Pipe 1 and Pipe 2, the grey bar on the top of each
schematic diagram in Figures 5d and 5e increased to a thicker
band representing the partial coated bitumen. The beginnings
of the thicker band on Pipe 1 and Pipe 2 are labeled as +F1
and +F2 in Figures 5d and 5e, respectively. For the artificial
discontinuities under the coating on Pipe 1, the amplitude of
the four artificial discontinuities became much smaller, as
shown in Figure 5d. Moreover, the signal of Weld W3 was
seriously reduced, although the location of W3 was beyond
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(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

Figure 5. The reflected signals from various features on the 152.4 mm Pipe 1 and Pipe 2: (a) the complete signal of bare Pipe 1;
(b) the zoomed view of 5a; (c) the zoomed signal of bare Pipe 2; (d) the zoomed signal of coated Pipe 1; (e) the zoomed signal
of coated Pipe 2.

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the coating. From Figure 5d, there was still a chance to

identify the four artificial discontinuities on Pipe 1 after fitting
the correct DAC curves, because the amplitudes were large
enough and the shapes were isolated. Nevertheless, Figure 5e
reveals that after fitting the correct distance calibration amplitude curves, only the ND1 and ND3 on Pipe 2 were clearly
identified, due to the large amplitude. The minor discontinuity ND2, with small amplitude caused by the effect of
existing of the bitumen coating, might have been undetected.
The signal of W2 on Pipe 1 and the signal of W5 on Pipe 2
are considered reference signals; the reflection ratio of the
discontinuities with different frequency regimes can be
obtained by calculating the ratio of amplitude of the discontinuity and the weld. As shown in Figure 6a, the reflection ratio
of all the artificial discontinuities was reduced by increasing
the frequency regime. It can be seen that the three curves
varying with frequency regime marked as triangle, diamond
and square in Figure 6a display similar shapes, with the

maximum value occurring in the lower frequency regime of

0.0. In the high frequency regime of 3.0 and 4.0, the reflection
ratio of the triangle is lower than that of the diamond. It might
be the reason that the constructive interference happened
between the reflected signal of AD3 and AD4 when the wavelength was small enough to distinguish the two discontinuities. In Figure 6b, the frequency-dependent behavior of the
ND1 (curve marked as diamond) is similar to the artificial
discontinuity shown in Figure 6a, but the reflection ratio of
ND3 (curve marked as triangle) got a bigger response in the
high frequency regime than in the low frequency regime. In
addition, the reflection ratio of ND2 (curve marked as
square) was smallest and changed slightly with frequency
regime.
As for Pipe 1 and Pipe 2 coated with bitumen, the reflection ratio of all discontinuities under the coating was smaller
than those without the coating. Figure 6c shows the decrease
in the reflection ratio of the discontinuity with increasing

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 6. Variation of reflection ratio with the operating frequency regime: (a) each artificial discontinuity on bare Pipe 1;
(b) each natural discontinuity on bare Pipe 2; (c) each artificial discontinuity on coated Pipe 1; (d) each natural discontinuity on
coated Pipe 2.

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frequency regime when the artificial discontinuities were

under bitumen coating. Figure 6d shows the reflection ratio of
natural discontinuities under bitumen coating. A minimum
value of the reflection ratio for the three natural discontinuities occured when the frequency regime equaled zero. This
indicates that without sweeping the frequency regime from
low to high, the indication of minor corrosion, such as ND2,
would be missed when only using low frequency guided
waves on bitumen coated pipe inspection. To avoid missing
any information of the reflected signal, the wavelet transform
technique was adopted to process the received signals coming
from the features on the coated pipes.
Detection of Minor Discontinuities by Wavelet Transform

As for the detection of minor discontinuity ND2, there are

four results shown in Figure 7ad with respect to the
frequency regime: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0, presented in A-scan
display. The natural discontinuity ND2 was characterized by a
discriminating black signal in the range of high frequency
regime 3.0 to 4.0. However, the signal of ND2 was covered by
the noise signals in the lower frequency regime. To extract the

small signal of ND2 from the experimental results of coated

pipe 2, the wavelet transform analysis was applied to process
the data. The wavelet transform analysis aims at characterizing the reflection in the time-frequency domain. However,
the time-amplitude signals had been automatically converted
to the distance-amplitude signals in the A-scan display by the
modeling software. Therefore, the data processed by continuous wavelet transform was presented in the distance-scale
domain to analyze the frequency response of the natural
discontinuities in the whole frequency range of interest.
Regarding the reflection of W5 as the reference signal, the
four signals in Figures 7ad were normalized and combined.
The combined data was extracted and processed for the
proposed continuous wavelet transform technique. To apply
the continuous wavelet transform, it was important to select
the most appropriate mother-wavelet function. The most
appropriate mother-wavelet function was selected by trial and
error. The analysis was carried out using the Daubechies
wavelet (db3) on a window of 307 data points of the entire
signals used in this study. Continuous wavelet transform with
selective mother-wavelet function was performed on the

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 7. The reflected signals from various features on the 152.4 mm coated pipe 2: (a) frequency regime = 1.0; (b) frequency
regime = 2.0; (c) frequency regime = 3.0; (d ) frequency regime = 4.0.

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combined data and Figure 8a shows the distribution of the

wavelet coefficients in the distance-scale domain. In Figure 8a,
the horizontal axis of the contour plot indicates the distance
division. Each distance division corresponds to 0.018 m and
the beginning point of the horizontal axis is 1.21 m. The
vertical axis indicates the wavelet scaling parameter a, which is
inversely proportional to frequency. The wavelet transform
shows the frequency range of the experimental data between 5
and 39 on the scaling parameter, which is related to the
frequency range from 48 to 5 kHz. The color at each point is
associated with the magnitude of the wavelet coefficients, with
the lighter color corresponding to a larger coefficient, and the
dark color corresponding to a smaller one. The distribution of
wavelet coefficients in the distance-scale domain showed the
obvious indication of three natural discontinuities ND1, ND2
and ND3.
In the higher range scale (lower frequency), only Welds
W5 and W6, and Discontinuity ND1, show the dominant

(a)

wavelet coefficients distribution. In the lower range scale

(higher frequency), more than three reflected signals of
discontinuities are exhibited clearly. Furthermore, the wavelet
coefficients presented in Figure 8b for a constant scale unveil
minor corrosion ND2 with a larger reflection ratio and
identify the location of ND2 along the pipe. Due to the
presence of the discontinuities, the larger wavelet coefficients
were obtained from the results of continuous wavelet transform. There were still some dominant spots, which can be
seen clearly in Figure 8a. These spots might be minor discontinuities located on the pipe wall because this section of Pipe
2 was cut from the refinery factory and had a high level of
generalized external corrosion on pipe surface. Thus, the
attenuation effect of the bitumen coating on torsional guided
wave based inspection was overcome by processing the attenuated reflection signal with continuous wavelet transform.
Conclusion
Wavelet transform analysis has been adopted to process the
signal of guided wave propagation on a bitumen-coated
pipe. The signals reflected from various discontinuities on a
152.4 mm steel pipe were measured to illustrate the effects
of the bitumen coating. The results showed that the effects
of the coating on the reflection comprise signal attenuation
increased in difficulty for minor discontinuity detection. A
comparison was also made between the signals of T(0,1)
mode reflected from the artificial discontinuity and the
natural discontinuity. The results show the multiplicity of
the natural discontinuity, especially in frequency-dependent
behavior. In the experimental results of coated pipe cases,
the signals of every discontinuity on Pipe 1 and Pipe 2 were
attenuated by the bitumen coating. Other than the signal of
ND2, however, the responses of the other discontinuities
were still large enough to give an obvious indication,
despite whether or not the coating was wrapped. To extract
the small signal of ND2, the continuous wavelet transform
technique was used to perform a distance-frequency
analysis. The results shown as a contour plot give a clear
indication of ND2 in the distance-scale domain. Therefore,
it is possible to find a minor discontinuity under the
bitumen coating on the pipe by continuous wavelet transform. With an understanding of the signal processing technique applied to a reflected signal, this technique can help
inspectors improve the ability of guided wave inspection of
bitumen-coated pipe.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

(b)

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of this work by the
National Science Council of Taiwan under Grant No. NSC 97-2221-E110-029.
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Figure 8. (a) The result of continuous wavelet transform for

the combined signal of the natural discontinuities on coated
Pipe 2; (b) the wavelet coefficient extracted from the Figure
8a for a constant scale.

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