Damage quantification of aluminum plates using SC-DTW method based on Lamb waves

Abstract

Lamb waves were utilized to quantify micro-crack damage in aluminum plates, and the scattering and mode conversion of Lamb waves passing through cracks were analyzed. The dynamic time warping (DTW) method was used to match and compare each Lamb wave time series that represented different damage degrees. The matching difference between the damaged plate and undamaged plate was taken as a marker to measure the damage degree of the workpiece. At the same time, due to the pathological alignment of traditional DTW methods, the shape context (SC) profile recognition method was introduced to optimize the algorithm for calculating the distance between sampling points in the DTW method and solve the pathological alignment problem. Finally, the SC-DTW method based on Lamb waves was verified by the finite element simulation model and bending test of aluminum plates. The results showed that the method was feasible for quantifying the damage degree of aluminum plates and had a great advantage in the analysis and processing of time series in low-sampling frequency and high-noise scenarios.