{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,15]],"date-time":"2026-06-15T15:04:51Z","timestamp":1781535891033,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,16]],"date-time":"2023-01-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1673827200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["52008205"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["52008205"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["20KJB560013"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["20KJB560013"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["HITCE202002"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HITCE202002"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Natural Science Foundation for College and University in Jiangsu Province","award":["52008205"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["52008205"]}]},{"name":"Natural Science Foundation for College and University in Jiangsu Province","award":["20KJB560013"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["20KJB560013"]}]},{"name":"Natural Science Foundation for College and University in Jiangsu Province","award":["HITCE202002"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HITCE202002"]}]},{"name":"Key Lab of Structural Dynamic Behavior and Control of the Ministry of Education","award":["52008205"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["52008205"]}]},{"name":"Key Lab of Structural Dynamic Behavior and Control of the Ministry of Education","award":["20KJB560013"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["20KJB560013"]}]},{"name":"Key Lab of Structural Dynamic Behavior and Control of the Ministry of Education","award":["HITCE202002"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HITCE202002"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Ultrasonic nondestructive testing (NDT) provides a valuable insight into the integrity of stainless steel structures, but the noise caused by the scattering of stainless steel microstructure often limits the effectiveness of inspection. This work presents a novel adaptive filtering approach to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a measured ultrasonic signal from the inspection of a stainless steel component, enabling the detection of hidden flaws under strong noise. After the spectral modeling of the noisy ultrasonic NDT signal, the difference between the spectral characteristics of a flaw echo and that of grain noise is highlighted, and a reference spectrum model to estimate the frequency spectrum of the echo reflected by any possible flaw is developed. Then, the signal is segmented and the similarity between the spectra of data segments and the reference spectra is evaluated quantitatively by the spectral similarity index (SSI). Based on this index, an adaptive time-frequency filtering scheme is proposed. Each data segment is processed by the filtering to suppress the energy of noise. The processed data segments are recombined to generate the de-noised signal after multiplying weighting coefficients, which again is determined by the SSI. The performance of the proposed method for SNR enhancement is evaluated by both the simulated and experimental signal and the effectiveness has been successfully demonstrated.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s23021030","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,16]],"date-time":"2023-01-16T04:57:19Z","timestamp":1673845039000},"page":"1030","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["A Novel Adaptive Time-Frequency Filtering Approach to Enhance the Ultrasonic Inspection of Stainless Steel Structures"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"23","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7725-9980","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Biao","family":"Wu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Haitao","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yong","family":"Huang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Structural Dynamic Behavior and Control of the Ministry of Education, School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3461-0862","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Wensong","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Structural Dynamic Behavior and Control of the Ministry of Education, School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiaohui","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration, Langfang 065201, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"127001","DOI":"10.1016\/j.conbuildmat.2022.127001","article-title":"Bond stress-slip relationship in concrete-filled square stainless steel tubes","volume":"326","author":"Dai","year":"2022","journal-title":"Constr. 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