Experimental ultrasonic characterization of polyester-based materials for cultural heritage applications.

For several years, the Réunion des musées nationaux - Grand-Palais has produced polyester resin reproductions in order to replace marble sculptures that have weakened by outdoor exposure. These objects are made of a complex multilayered polyester composite material including reinforcements to ensure the mechanical strength of the final structure and mineral fillers that allow to imitate the original aesthetics. However, the final structure also weakens because of constant outdoor exposure and ageing. This observation leads today to conduct research related to the structural health monitoring of reproductions for preventive conservation of cultural heritage. This paper presents a nondestructive technique to study the properties of the composite material used to produce reproductions of marble sculptures. Firstly, classical ultrasonic contact measurements were performed to estimate bulk properties and Rayleigh wave velocity. Secondly, experimental Rayleigh wave was measured using contact and laser vibrometry methods. The results show the potential of using ultrasonic surface wave propagation and laser vibrometry method to develop a minimum contact technique to study these polyester-based materials. The maximum relative uncertainty with respect to the expected theoretical Rayleigh wave velocity was close to 12%.

Analysis of signals propagating in a phononic crystal PZT layer deposited on a silicon substrate.

The design of a stop-band filter constituted by a periodically patterned lead zirconate titanate (PZT) layer, polarized along its thickness, deposited on a silicon substrate and sandwiched between interdigitated electrodes for emission/reception of guided elastic waves, is investigated. The filter characteristics are theoretically evaluated by using finite element simulations: dispersion curves of a patterned PZT layer with a specific pattern geometry deposited on a silicon substrate present an absolute stop band. The whole structure is modeled with realistic conditions, including appropriate interdigitated electrodes to propagate a guided mode in the piezoelectric layer. A robust method for signal analysis based on the Gabor transform is applied to treat transmitted signals; extract attenuation, group delays, and wave number variations versus frequency; and identify stop-band filter characteristics.

Ultrasonic self-calibrated method applied to monitoring of sol-gel transition.

In many industrial processes where online control is necessary such as in the food industry, the real time monitoring of visco-elastic properties is essential to ensure the quantity of production. Acoustic methods have shown that reliable properties could be obtained from measurements of velocity and attenuation. This paper proposes a simple, real time ultrasound method for monitoring linear medium properties (phase velocity and attenuation) that vary in time. The method is based on a pulse echo measurement and is self-calibrated. Results on a silica gel are reported and the importance of taking into account the changes of the mechanical loading on the front face of the transducer will be shown. This is done through a modification of the emission and reception transfer parameters. The simultaneous measurement of the input and output currents and voltages enables these parameters to be calculated during the reaction. The variations of the transfer parameters are in the order of 6% and predominate other effects. The evolution of the ultrasonic longitudinal wave phase velocity and attenuation as a function of time allows the characteristic times of the chemical reaction to be determined. The results are well correlated with the gelation time measured by rheological method at low frequency.

Study of the bending modes in circular quartz resonators.

An experimental and theoretical study of bending modes in a partially electroded circular piezoelectric quartz (AT-cut) with free edge is presented. The quartz is excited by a voltage pulse applied on the electrodes, and its surface is scanned by a laser vibrometer that measures the out-of-plane displacements. The classical theory of bending of thin disks is used to describe the flexural modes at frequencies lower than the first thickness shear resonance (6 MHz). A fairly good agreement is found between experimental and theoretical results for the forced mode shapes and for the resonance frequencies. However, it appears that the two springs used to maintain the disk in position introduce extra clamping conditions. Several source shapes were studied, among which a collection of an arbitrary number of forces is particularly useful. The two-dimensional wavenumber representation shows the presence of anisotropy related to the crystallographic axes at higher frequencies, which is not predicted by the model. The experimental phase velocities are compared to those given by the classical theory of disks and to those of Lamb A(0) mode. This study confirms the correspondence at low frequencies between the A(0) mode and the bending eigenmodes of a disk with finite size.

3D Gabor analysis of transient waves propagating along an AT cut quartz disk.

Laser detection methods allow the investigation of ultrasonic transient phenomena in both space and time dimensions. Used for the experimental investigation of surface wave propagation along a 2D surface, laser ultrasonic leads to three dimensional (3D) space-time signal collections. The classical high resolution signal processing methods or 3D Fourier Transforms can be used in order to extract the wave propagation information, however these methods are not adapted for identifying where and when the waves are generated. In order to quantify these transient aspects in the space-time-wave number-frequency domains, the 3D Gabor transform is introduced. The 3D Gabor transform properties are presented. The potential of the 3D Gabor for the identification of the local and transient complex wave numbers is illustrated on the propagation of surface waves on a piezoelectric quartz (AT cut, 6 MHz). In this experimental study, the quartz is excited by a voltage pulse and the quartz surface is scanned by a laser vibrometer. The 3D Gabor analysis shows that the circular electrodes borders generate anti-phase surface waves that propagates outside the electrodes, with a strong energy contribution in the low frequency domain (<1 MHz). The transient analysis also points out, for higher frequencies, where the surface waves are generated and how they propagate with respect of both to the geometry of the electrodes and the crystallographic axis of the quartz. These results confirm the theoretical modal analysis and provide new knowledge about the key role played by the electrodes border. This will allow the optimization of the electrodes shape in order to design low frequency Lamb wave sensors.

Laser ultrasonic analysis of normal modes generated by a voltage pulse on an AT quartz sensor.

Laser ultrasonic detection is a versatile and highly sensitive tool for the observation of surface waves. In the following study, laser ultrasonic detection is used for the experimental study of spurious normal vibration modes of a disk quartz sensor excited by a voltage pulse. The AT cut crystal (cut of the crystal relative to the the main crystallographic axis is 35.25 degrees) is optimal for generating mainly thickness-shear vibrations (central frequency 6 MHz) on the quartz surface. However, resulting from shear-to-longitudinal and shear-to-surface mode conversion, and from the weak coupling with the other crystallographic axes, other modes (thickness-compressional and bending modes) are always present in the plate response. Since the laser vibrometer is sensitive to normal displacements, the laser investigation shows waves that can be considered as unwanted for the AT quartz used as a shear sensor. The scanned three dimensional (3D) amplitude-space-time signals are carefully analysed using their representation in three dual Fourier domains (space-time, wave number-frequency). Results on the transient analysis of the waves, the normal bending modes and the dispersion curves are shown.

Space-time-wave number-frequency Z(x, t, k, f) analysis of SAW generation on fluid filled cylindrical shells.

A new 4D space-time-wave number-frequency representation Z(x,t,k,f) is introduced. The Z(x,t,k,f) representation is used for processing 2D space-time signal collection issued from wave propagation along a 1D medium. This representation is an extension along the time dimension of the space-wave number-frequency representation. The Z(x,t,k,f) representation is obtained by short time-space 2D Fourier transforming the space-time collection. The Z(x,t,k,f) representation allows the characterization transient aspects of wave generation and propagation in both space and time dimensions. The Z(x,t,k,f) representation is used to experimentally investigate Lamb wave generation and propagation around a cylindrical shell (relative thickness is equal to 0.03) surrounded by water and excited by a pulse (0.1 micros duration with 1-5 MHz transducers). Three kinds of fluids have been used inside the shell: air, water, propanol. In all the cases, the Z(x,t,k,f) analysis clearly identify the reflected field on the insonified side of the shell and it allows the measurement of the local reflection coefficients R(x,t,k,f). The generation and the propagation of Lamb waves are also quantified. For the liquid filled shells, the multiple internal reflections are revealed by Z(x,t,k,f) analysis: the local transmission coefficients T(x,t,k,f) are also measured. When local matching conditions allows Lamb wave generation, the multiple regeneration of Lamb wave is observed. Based on these results, a link is establish toward the theoretical results obtained by steady state approach and Sommerfeld-Watson transform.

Chirp-Z analysis for sol-gel transition monitoring.

Gelation is a complex reaction that transforms a liquid medium into a solid one: the gel. In gel state, some gel materials (DMAP) have the singular property to ring in an audible frequency range when a pulse is applied. Before the gelation point, there is no transmission of slow waves observed; after the gelation point, the speed of sound in the gel rapidly increases from 0.1 to 10 m/s. The time evolution of the speed of sound can be measured, in frequency domain, by following the frequency spacing of the resonance peaks from the Synchronous Detection (SD) measurement method. Unfortunately, due to a constant frequency sampling rate, the relative error for low speeds (0.1 m/s) is 100%. In order to maintain a low constant relative error, in the whole speed time evolution range, Chirp-Z Transform (CZT) is used. This operation transforms a time variant signal to a time invariant one using only a time dependant stretching factor (S). In the frequency domain, the CZT enables us to stretch each collected spectrum from time signals. The blind identification of the S factor gives us the complete time evolution law of the speed of sound. Moreover, this method proves that the frequency bandwidth follows the same time law. These results point out that the minimum wavelength stays constant and that it only depends on the gel.