Thin-walled structures, like aircraft skins and ship shells, are often several meters in size but only a few millimeters thick. By utilizing the laser ultrasonic Lamb wave detection method (LU-LDM), signals can be detected over long distances without physical contact. Additionally, this technology offers excellent flexibility in designing the measurement point distribution. The characteristics of LU-LDM are first analyzed in this review, specifically in terms of laser ultrasound and hardware configuration. Next, the methods are categorized based on three criteria: the quantity of collected wavefield data, the spectral domain, and the distribution of measurement points. The advantages and disadvantages of multiple methods are compared, and the suitable conditions for each method are summarized. Thirdly, we summarize four combined methods that balance detection efficiency and accuracy. Finally, several future development trends are suggested, and the current gaps and shortcomings in LU-LDM are highlighted. This review builds a comprehensive framework for LU-LDM for the first time, which is expected to serve as a technical reference for applying this technology in large, thin-walled structures.

Non-contact laser ultrasonic detection technology provides an innovative solution for evaluating the internal conditions of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), offering significant advantages in gas defect assessment and structural defect identification. This study proposes a method for evaluating internal gas defects in LIBs based on a non-contact laser ultrasonic system. The system uses a pulsed laser to generate ultrasonic waves, with a full-optical probe receiving the signals, enabling high-resolution imaging of the internal features of the battery. The study analyzes key ultrasonic characteristics under different laser parameters (energy, pulse width, and focal length) and their correlation with defective regions. Through both time-domain and frequency-domain analysis of the ultrasonic features, the results demonstrate that the signal amplitude attenuation characteristics of ultrasound in media with acoustic impedance mismatches can be used for precise detection and quantitative characterization of gas defect regions within the battery. This non-contact technology offers a promising method for real-time, non-destructive monitoring of the internal condition of lithium-ion batteries, significantly enhancing battery safety and reliability.

Lamb waves exhibit multimode and dispersive characteristics, which mask crucial damage information and deteriorate damage localization resolution in structural health monitoring. This article aims to enhance damage detection capability through multi-mode fusion imaging by developing an advanced signal processing approach. A computationally efficient Particle Swarm Optimization-enhanced Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (PSO-OMP) algorithm with physics-guided over-complete dictionaries is proposed to separate overlapping wave packets of A₀ and S₀ modes and compensate dispersion effects. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed method achieves superior wave packet arrival time accuracy (errors < 2%) compared with conventional MP and OMP algorithms, while maintaining robust performance under various noise conditions. Experimental validation using a sparse array of piezoelectric wafers confirms successful mode separation and dispersion compensation. Comparative analysis reveals that the multi-mode fusion imaging significantly outperforms single-mode imaging, achieving 23.8% improvement in damage localization accuracy and effective artifact suppression. This work contributes to the field of structural health monitoring by establishing an effective multi-mode imaging framework, enabling more accurate and reliable damage assessment in plate-like structures.

The ultrasonic guided wave-based damage imaging methods are often limited in detection accuracy and resolution due to the dispersive characteristics of guided waves. Finding ways to extract more information from the guided wave field to improve imaging resolution has always been a hot topic in ultrasonic imaging. Based on the same set of guided wave field data obtained by numerical simulation and experiments, this paper compares the detection accuracy and resolution of the time-domain delay-and-sum (DAS) method, the frequency-domain DAS method, and the DORT-MUSIC method, which integrates time-reversal operator decomposition with multiple signal classification. The results show that, compared to the traditional time-domain imaging method, the frequency-domain method that incorporates dispersion relations exhibits significantly higher imaging accuracy. Additionally, the DORT-MUSIC method demonstrates a remarkable advantage in resolution, which can approach the diffraction limit. Related work in this paper provides a research basis for improving the imaging accuracy and resolution for ultrasonic guided waves in the practical application of structure damage detection.

The damage imaging method based on Lamb wave beamforming has been widely used in the field of SHM. The DAS method has a high imaging efficiency, but its ability to suppress interference signals is weak, resulting in low imaging resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. Drawing inspiration from the adaptive weighted MVDR damage imaging method, this paper constructs a neural network based on FCNN, with the images generated by the MVDR method as the target. By training the model, the mapping relationship between delayed channel input data and adaptive weighting factors is established, thereby improving the resolution and signal-to-noise ratio of Lamb wave damage imaging and achieving rapid damage imaging. To verify the effectiveness and imaging performance of the FCNN method, imaging of two types of damage in aluminum plates is conducted through simulation and experiments, and the imaging results are compared and analyzed with DAS and MVDR. The results show that the imaging quality and quantitative indicators of FCNN have not yet reached the performance of MVDR, but compared with DAS, FCNN has a significantly narrower main lobe width and lower sidelobe level. Furthermore, its quantitative indicators such as API, SNR, and FWHM are better than DAS. The proposed adaptive Lamb wave beamforming method based on FCNN combines high resolution and signal-to-noise ratio, as well as the advantage of rapid imaging, providing reference and support for real-time SHM based on Lamb waves.

Among damage imaging methods based on Lamb waves, the Minimum Variance Distortionless Response (MVDR) method adaptively calculates channel weights to suppress interference signals, improving imaging resolution and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). However, the MVDR method involves matrix inversion, which introduces a high computational burden to the implementation process and makes real-time damage detection challenging. We propose constructing a Convolutional-Neural-Network (CNN)-based network architecture based on the Delay-and-Sum (DAS) beamforming method. This architecture replaces the MVDR’s adaptive weight calculation by establishing a nonlinear mapping from multi-channel data to weighting factors, enabling efficient high-resolution Lamb wave damage imaging with an enhanced SNR. To verify the effectiveness and imaging performance of the CNN-based method, damage in an aluminum plate is imaged using both simulation and experimental methods. The imaging results are compared and analyzed against those of the DAS and MVDR methods. The results show that the proposed CNN-based adaptive Lamb wave beamforming method, which combines the advantages of a high resolution and signal-to-noise ratio, as well as rapid imaging, can provide reference and support for real-time Lamb-wave-based Structural Health Monitoring (SHM).