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This study identified depths of artificial pitting corrosion on the galvanized steel wires, frequently used in bridge cables, based on the time reversal method (TRM). Specifically, the multimode longitudinal ultrasonic guided waves are excited in terms of characteristics of radical distribution of the normalized average energy flow density (NAPFD) in a wire. Furthermore, the complex defect scattered signals are difficult to interpret, which are attributed to multimode, multipath and dispersion, but are considered to enhance the focused energy through the TRM while the different depths of defect are explicitly identified by the normalized amplitudes of reconstructed wave packets. Finally, in contrast to the traditional monitoring approach relying on the amplitude of defect echo, the proposed method in this study is demonstrated to have a higher sensitivity to recognize the progressive increase of corrosion depth.