CRACK DETECTION IN DIELECTRIC OBJECTS USING ELECTRICAL CAPACITANCE TOMOGRAPHY

VJ Stewart1,2, O Dorn 3, CJ Budd2, M Soleimani1

1Department of electronic and electrical engineering, University of Bath, Bath, UK

2Department of mathematical science, University of Bath, Bath, UK

3Department of mathematics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

ABSTRACT - Dielectric materials are becoming widely used because of their versatility and low­cost. Examples include carbon fibre, glass reinforced plastic, polymers and ceramics. These materials are increasingly used for aircraft structures and other important areas, such as transportation in gas pipelines, whose materials require regular inspection. There is a need for a new technology for rapid inspection of dielectric materials. This paper is focusing in one of the most challenging material inspection problems using an electrical capacitance tomography (EIT) system. We show that volume cracks could be detected using ECT data using state of the art shape reconstruction algorithm. The reconstruction of cracks is not possible using conventional image based approach that is used in the industrial process tomography application of ECT.