Nonlinear Properties of Lamb Waves under Modulation of Fatigue Damage: <i>Finite Element Simulation with Experimental Validation</i>

Abstract

Engineering structures under cyclic loads experience continuous accumulation of fatigue damage, deteriorating at an alarming rate. Most existing structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques use linear signal features, which may be unwieldy to the detection of fatigue damage in an initial stage. A dedicated finite element (FE) modeling technique for simulating nonlinear properties of ultrasonic Lamb waves under the modulation of fatigue cracks in metallic materials was established. Piezoelectric wafers were included in the model for exciting Lamb waves and capturing nonlinear characteristics. A nonlinearity parameter was constructed to calibrate the extracted wave nonlinear properties. Feasibility of the FE technique was experimentally validated, and the results showed satisfactory consistency in between, both revealing that (i) the developed FE modeling technique is able to faithfully simulate fatigue crack-induced nonlinear properties in Lamb waves, providing repeatable characterization for fatigue cracks; (ii) the defined nonlinear parameter decreases when the direct wave path offsets from the fatigue crack, nonlinearly subject to the offset distance from the crack to a sensing path; and (iii) a cumulative growth of the nonlinearity parameter against the wave propagation distance exists. All the observations enable quantitative characterization of micro-fatigue cracks using embeddable piezoelectric wafers, facilitating development of SHM technique with a capacity of quantitatively detecting damage small in dimension.