Improved detection of nonlinear waves in thin solid materials using a pulse-echo method based on nonlinear modeling of wave fields

Abstract

The nonlinearity parameter is a powerful tool for nondestructive evaluation, as it provides a measure of the state of damage of structural components. When carrying out nonlinearity parameter measurements of solid structures, the pulse-echo method is more suitable than the through-transmission method; however, a planar stress-free boundary is known to destructively alter the nonlinear wave generation process, including the second harmonic component, meaning that the pulse-echo nonlinear method is limited for practical applications, especially for thin solids. In this work, an improved detection method is proposed for the enhancement of nonlinear wave measurement in thin solids using a pulse-echo method with a dual-element transducer consisting of an outer ring transmitter and an inner disk receiver. A multi-Gaussian beam model is developed for the ring transmitter to fast simulate the pulse-echo nonlinear wave fields, and based on the results, improvements for the received nonlinear waves are achieved by optimizing the driving frequency. The advantages of the proposed method are that solid samples with different thicknesses can be evaluated using a dual-element transducer, and a high measurement accuracy can also be achieved for thin solid samples. Experiments are performed to investigate the harmonic waves measured in fatigue-damaged thin steel samples, and the results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.