Acousto-Ultrasonic Inspection of Pre-baked Carbon Anodes: Repeatability Analysis and Assessment of Damage Detection Performance

Previous studies have established the potential of acousto-ultrasonic inspection (AU) for non-destructive testing and evaluation of pre-baked carbon anodes soundness. This work evaluates its repeatability through the development of a new experimental setup that allows testing a larger number of anodes and classifying them based on presence/absence of defects. Principal Component Analysis and Projection to Latent Structures Discriminant Analysis, both coupled with Linear Discriminants, are used to analyze AU signals, detect and locate various defects on the anodes. The proposed method is capable of detecting small defects, and has the potential to become an instrument for both process and quality control of the anode production.