RESUMO
A fully non-contact single-sided air-coupled and laser ultrasonic non-destructive system based on the generation and detection of Lamb waves is implemented for the characterization of A0 Lamb wave mode dispersion in a composite plate. An air-coupled transducer (ACT) radiates acoustic pressure on the surface of the composite and generates Lamb waves within the structure. The out-of-plane velocity of the propagating wave is measured using a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV). In this study, the non-contact automated system focuses on measuring A0 mode frequency-wavenumber, phase velocity dispersion curves using Snell's law and group velocity dispersion curves using Morlet wavelet transform (MWT) based on time-of-flight along different wave propagation directions. It is theoretically demonstrated that Snell's law represents a direct link between the phase velocity of the generated Lamb wave mode and the coincidence angle of the ACT. Using Snell's law and MWT, the former three dispersion curves of the A0 mode are easily and promptly generated from a set of measurements obtained from a rapid ACT angle scan experiment. In addition, the phase velocity and group velocity polar characteristic wave curves are also computed to analyze experimentally the angular dependency of Lamb wave propagation. In comparison with the results from the theory, it is confirmed that using the ACT/LDV system and implementing simple Snell's law method is highly sensitive and effective in characterizing the dispersion curves of Lamb waves in composite structures as well as its angular dependency.
RESUMO
A rapid, fully non-contact, hybrid system which encompasses an air-coupled transducer (ACT) and a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) is presented for profiling A0 Lamb wave dispersion of an isotropic aluminum plate. The ACT generates ultrasonic pressure incident upon the surface of the plate. The pressure waves are partially refracted into the plate. The LDV is employed to measure the out-of-plane velocity of the excited Lamb wave mode at some distances where the Lamb waves are formed in the plate. The influence of the ACT angle of incidence on Lamb wave excitation is investigated and Snell's law is used to directly compute Lamb wave dispersion curves including phase and group velocity dispersion curves in aluminum plates from incident angles found to generate optimal A0 Lamb wave mode. The measured curves are compared to results obtained from a two-dimensional (2-D) Fast Fourier transform (FFT), Morlet wavelet transform (MWT) and theoretical predictions. It was concluded that the experimental results obtained using Snell's law concept are well in accordance with the theoretical solutions. The high degree of accuracy in the measured data with the theoretical results proved a high sensitivity of the air-coupled and laser ultrasound in characterizing Lamb wave dispersion in plate-like structures. The proposed non-contact hybrid system can effectively characterize the dispersive relation without knowledge of neither the materials characteristics nor the mathematical model.
