Appraising Kirchhoff approximation theory for the scattering of elastic shear waves by randomly rough defects

Abstract

Rapid and accurate methods, based on the Kirchhoff approximation (KA), are developed to evaluate the scattering of shear waves by rough defects and quantify the accuracy of this approximation. Defect roughness has a strong effect on the reflection of ultrasound, and every rough defect has a different surface, so standard methods of assessing the sensitivity of inspection based on smooth defects are necessarily limited. Accurately resolving rough cracks in non-destructive evaluation (NDE) inspections often requires shear waves since they have higher sensitivity to surface roughness than longitudinal waves. KA models are attractive, since they are rapid to deploy, however they are an approximation and it is important to determine the range of validity for the scattering of ultrasonic shear waves; this range is found here. Good agreement between KA and high fidelity finite element simulations is obtained for a range of incident/scattering angles, and the limits of validity for KA are found to be much stricter than for longitudinal wave incidence; as the correlation length of rough surfaces is reduced to the order of the incident shear wavelength, a combination of multiple scattering and surface wave mode conversion leads to KA predictions diverging from those of the true diffuse scattered fields.