Novel baseline-free ultrasonic Lamb wave defect location method based on path amplitude matching

Abstract

Ultrasonic Lamb wave detection technology constitutes a non-destructive evaluation approach extensively employed for the identification of flaws within plate-like structures. The conventional method for detecting and localizing defects in isotropic plate-like structures using ultrasonic Lamb waves relies on baseline signal data. However, the reliability of baseline data as a reference value is diminished due to varying working conditions of the structure. Therefore, to overcome the influence of mismatched baseline data, this paper proposes a novel non-baseline Lamb wave defect detection and localization method. Through simulation and experiment studies, it is discovered that defects at different positions have varied impacts on the amplitude of direct wave-packets under the same propagation path. By eliminating differences in the piezoelectric excitation characteristics of the sensing array (normalized through boundary reflect wave), the direct wave amplitude of multiple sensor pairs in the circular array can be compared and ranked. The paths closest to the location of the damage can be identified, enabling to obtain the defect location information. In this paper, the feasibility and effectiveness of this method has been verified by simulation and practical experiments. The experimental data and imaging results obtained over a four-month period demonstrate that, compared to the traditional baseline localization method, the baseline-free method proposed in this study exhibits a greater ability to resist interference caused by changes in environmental temperature. By increasing the number of sensors from 16 to 32, the positioning accuracy can be significantly improved, reducing the positioning deviation from 13 mm to 0.42 mm. This new non-baseline method based on path amplitude matching demonstrates enhanced practicality within the realm of engineering. Notably, this method holds the potential to be synergistically incorporated and applied in conjunction with various other measurement techniques.