Modelling for characterizing defects in plates using two-dimensional maps of instantaneous ultrasonic out-of-plane displacement obtained by pulsed TV-holography

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that non-destructive inspection of plates can be performed by using two-dimensional maps of instantaneous out-of-plane displacements obtained with a self-developed pulsed TV-holography system. Specifically, the interaction of guided elastic waves with defects produces scattering patterns that contain information about the defects (position, dimensions, orientation, etc.). For quantitative characterization on this basis, modeling of the wave propagation and interaction with the defects is necessary. In fact, the development of models for scattering of waves in plates is yet an active research field in which the most reliable approach is usually based on the rigorous formulation of elasticity theory. By contrast, in this work the capability of a simple two-dimensional scalar model for obtaining a quantitative description of the output two-dimensional maps associated to artificial defects in plates is studied. Some experiments recording the interaction of narrowband Rayleigh waves with artificial defects in aluminum plates are presented, in which the acoustic field is obtained from the TV-holography optical phase-change maps by means of a specially developed two-step spatio-temporal Fourier transform method. For the modeling, harmonic regime and free-stress boundary conditions are assumed. Comparisons between experimental and simulated maps are included for defects with different shapes.