Signal processing techniques for recovering input waveforms in dispersive Lamb wave propagation

Abstract

Lamb waves are extensively used in plate-like structure inspection because of their guided nature. However, their dispersive properties often limit their use in flaw detection and other applications. Dispersion weakens and defocuses interrogating Lamb waves and makes it difficult to accurately interpret signals reflected from defects or boundaries. Time reversal (TR) processing can be applied to compensate for the effect of dispersive Lamb waves. Thus, the TR operation will enable the amplification of dispersive Lamb wave signals by signal compression in time. In this study, experiments are performed in order to examine the refocusing and recovering the initial input waveform in the long range propagation of dispersive Lamb waves in a plate. Two different time reversal processes (regular TR and reciprocal TR or inverse filtering) are tested and the experimental results are compared.