AI-driven Bayesian inference of statistical microstructure descriptors from finite-frequency waves

TL;DR

This paper develops a Bayesian inference framework using machine learning to extract microstructural information from long-wavelength wave data, enabling improved imaging of materials at the microscale across various fields.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining two-point statistics, strong-contrast expansions, and Random Forests for Bayesian microstructure inference from wave data.

Findings

Effective wavespeed and attenuation depend mainly on volume fraction and phase properties.

Inversion of small-scale wave effects yields more accurate microstructure information.

Retrieving microscale contrasts is challenging and requires prior knowledge.

Abstract

The ability to image materials at the microscale from long-wavelength wave data is a major challenge to the geophysical, engineering and medical fields. Here, we present a framework to constrain microstructure geometry and properties from long-scale waves. To realistically quantify microstructures we use two-point statistics, from which we derive scale-dependent effective wave properties - wavespeed and attenuation - using strong-contrast expansions (SCE) for (visco)elastic wavefields. By evaluating various two-point correlation functions we observe that both effective wavespeeds and attenuation of long-scale waves predominantly depend on volume fraction and phase properties, and that especially attenuation at small scales is highly sensitive to the geometry of microstructure heterogeneity (e.g. geometric hyperuniformity) due to incoherent inference of sub-wavelength multiple scattering. Our goal is to infer microstructure properties from observed effective wave parameters. To this end, we use the supervised machine learning method of Random Forests (RF) to construct a Bayesian inference approach. We can accurately resolve two-point correlation functions sampled from various microstructural configurations, including: a bead pack, Berea sandstone and Ketton limestone samples. Importantly, we show that inversion of small scale-induced effective elastic waves yields the best results, particularly compared to single-wave-mode (e.g., acoustic only) information. Additionally, we show that the retrieval of microscale medium contrasts is more difficult - as it is highly ill-posed - and can only be achieved with specific a priori knowledge. Our results are promising for many applications, such as earthquake hazard monitoring,non-destructive testing, imaging fluid flow in porous media, quantifying tissue properties in medical ultrasound, or designing materials with tailor-made wave properties.