The invention relates to a large-
caliber thick-wall pipeline defect location method based on time-reversal circumferential
Lamb waves. According to the method, a defect in a pipeline is regarded as a wave source, and scattered signals generated by interaction of the circumferential
Lamb waves and the defect are regarded to be sent by the wave source. The scattered signals are secondarily excited by a multi-channel sensor after the scattered signals are accepted, intercepted and inverted by the multi-channel sensor, thereby achieving detection of small defects in a large-
caliber thick-wall pipeline. Bu utilization of the time-reversal focusing principle, the signals surely focus on the position of the wave source (namely the defect), and therefore defect echo signals with high amplitudes are generated, and existence of the defect can be determined based on the defect echo signals. Meanwhile, according to compensation characteristics of time reversal to circumferential Lamb
wave frequency dispersion and multimoding effects, the direct signals will focus partly, and defect circumferential location of the large-
caliber thick-wall pipeline is achieved by using the time for direct
signal focusing as the time reference. The process can be achieved by two manners as follows: detection by utilization of a
sensor array and a multichannel
signal excitation reception
system; and detection by utilization of a pair of sensors and a single-channel
signal excitation reception
system. The method solves problems, namely difficulty in finding the time reference, difficulty in locating defects, and the like, in time-reversal
ultrasonic detection.