Locating a small change in a multiple scattering environment

Éric Larose (1) , Thomas Planes (1) , Vincent Rossetto (2) , Ludovic Margerin (3)

1 LGIT - Laboratoire de Géophysique Interne et Tectonophysique
2 LPM2C - Laboratoire de physique et modélisation des milieux condensés
3 CEREGE - Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement des géosciences de l'environnement

This article presents an imaging technique to locate a weak perturbation in a multiple scattering environment. We derive a formula to predict the spatio-temporal decorrelation of diffuse coda waves induced by an extra-scatterer. Locating this new defect is formulated as an inverse problem which is solved by a maximum likelihood approach. Using elastic waves in the 50-400~kHz frequency band, we recover the position of a millimetric hole drilled in a concrete sample with a precision of a few cm. Note that the size of the defect is comparable to the size of the myriads of heterogeneities constituting the sample.

Domaines: Systèmes désordonnés et réseaux de neurones [cond-mat.dis-nn]; Acoustique [physics.class-ph]; Acoustique [physics.class-ph]; Physique Classique [physics.class-ph]

Éric Larose, Thomas Planes, Vincent Rossetto, Ludovic Margerin. Locating a small change in a multiple scattering environment. Applied Physics Letters, 2010, 96 (20), pp.204101. ⟨10.1063/1.3431269⟩. ⟨hal-00503898⟩