Steering the propagation direction of a non-linear acoustic wave in a solid material.

In this research non-collinear wave mixing is used as a non-destructive testing method where the amplitude of the scattering wave contains information on the condition of a material. The practical implementation of non-collinear wave mixing as a non-destructive testing technique is limited by many factors such as the geometry and shape of the structure, the accessibility to the specimen's surfaces and the ultrasonic sensors available to perform measurements. A novel approach to steer the propagation direction of a generated wave from the mixing of two incident acoustic waves is proposed. The angle of the scattering wave is controlled by the frequencies of the two interaction waves, rather than by the angle between these waves. The scattering amplitude was analytically solved for the longitudinal plus shear interaction process. The analytical solution was validated with experiments. The model qualitatively agrees with the experiments. Furthermore, the possibility to use a wider range of excitation frequencies of the incident waves was found. This is a great advantage in applications where the space and access to the specimen under test is limited.

A Methodology Based on Pulse-Velocity Measurements to Quantify the Chemical Degradation Levels in Thin Mortar Specimens.

In this research, ultrasonic pulse echo measurements are used to quantify through thickness chemical degradation in thin mortar specimens. The degradation level is predicted using the time of travel of the acoustic wave through the thickness of the structure. The front and back wall interaction reflections are used to obtain additional information from very early stage degradation. The pulse-velocity of sound waves as a function of the thickness of the layers within the structure is described. With knowledge of the pulse-velocity in pristine and fully degraded conditions, it is possible to determine the complete range of degradation length over the layer thickness. The method is applicable for leaching of calcium and acidic attack. The acoustic measurements were verified with destructive testing. The correlation between the acoustic and non-acoustic experiments agree with the described pulse-velocity and degraded depth function. The method based on ultrasonic measurements can be implemented in other thin-layered structures.