scholarly journals A Graphical Analysis Method of Guided Wave Modes in Rails

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xining Xu ◽  
Bo Xing ◽  
Lu Zhuang ◽  
Hongmei Shi ◽  
Liqiang Zhu

The cross-section of a rail has a complex geometry, and there are many propagating modes of ultrasonic guided waves in a rail. The analysis of mode shapes or the cross-sectional wave structure is of high significance to the design of an appropriate wave excitation approach for long-range defect detection of a rail. Traditionally, the semi-analytical finite elements (SAFE) method is used to obtain ultrasonic guided waves’ dispersion curves of a rail. Then, through solving the eigenvectors, it is able to calculate the displacement values of discrete nodes in three degrees of freedom (DOFs) and further obtain the wave structures. In this paper, a graphical analysis method of guided wave mode shapes is proposed. The displacements of each node in three DOFs are converted into Red Green Blue (RGB) image pixels, and the complex vibration vector data is expressed by an image. Therefore, the graphical analysis of mode shapes can be realized by using conventional image processing methods without the design of special data processing algorithms. This will improve the processing efficiency, and it is more intuitive and easier to analyze the vibration displacements represented by the image. The simulation results show that the proposed graphical analysis method can quickly and precisely locate the excitation position of the guided wave mode in the rail. By adopting image processing methods, such as the K-means clustering algorithm, the guided wave modes at a 35 kHz frequency in a rail are classified according to their mode shapes. Classification is essential for exploring the relations and fundamentals of vibrations in modes. The graphical analysis method proposed in this paper provides a novel method for the mode analysis of guided waves in rails.

Author(s):  
Owen M. Malinowski ◽  
Matthew S. Lindsey ◽  
Jason K. Van Velsor

In the past few decades, ultrasonic guided waves have been utilized more frequently Non-Destructive Testing (NDT); most notably, in the qualitative screening of buried piping. However, only a fraction of their potential applications in NDT have been fully realized. This is due, in part, to their complex nature, as well as the high level of expertise required to understand and utilize their propagation characteristics. The mode/frequency combinations that can be generated in a particular structure depend on geometry and material properties and are represented by the so-called dispersion curves. Although extensive research has been done in ultrasonic guided wave propagation in various geometries and materials, the treatment of ultrasonic guided wave propagation in periodic structures has received little attention. In this paper, academic aspects of ultrasonic guided wave propagation in structures with periodicity in the wave vector direction are investigated, with the practical purpose of developing an ultrasonic guided wave based inspection technique for finned tubing. Theoretical, numerical, and experimental methods are employed. The results of this investigation show excellent agreement between theory, numerical modeling, and experimentation; all of which indicate that ultrasonic guided waves will propagate coherently in finned tube only if the proper wave modes and frequencies are selected. It is shown that the frequencies at which propagating wave modes exist can be predicted theoretically and numerically, and depend strongly on the fin geometry. Furthermore, the results show that these propagating wave modes are capable of screening for and identifying the axial location of damage in the tube wall, as well as separation of the fins from the tube wall. The conclusion drawn from these results is that Guided Wave Testing (GWT) is a viable inspection method for screening finned tubing.


2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 849
Author(s):  
Rymantas Jonas Kazys ◽  
Justina Sestoke ◽  
Egidijus Zukauskas

Ultrasonic-guided waves are widely used for the non-destructive testing and material characterization of plates and thin films. In the case of thin plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC), films up to 3.2 MHz with only two Lamb wave modes, antisymmetrical A0 and symmetrical S0, may propagate. At frequencies lower that 240 kHz, the velocity of the A0 mode becomes slower than the ultrasonic velocity in air which makes excitation and reception of such mode complicated. For excitation of both modes, we propose instead a single air-coupled ultrasonic transducer to use linear air-coupled arrays, which can be electronically readjusted to optimally excite and receive the A0 and S0 guided wave modes. The objective of this article was the numerical investigation of feasibility to excite different types of ultrasonic-guided waves, such as S0 and A0 modes in thin plastic films with the same electronically readjusted linear phased array. Three-dimensional and two-dimensional simulations of A0 and S0 Lamb wave modes using a single ultrasonic transducer and a linear phased array were performed. The obtained results clearly demonstrate feasibility to excite efficiently different guided wave modes in thin plastic films with readjusted phased array.


2005 ◽  
Vol 297-300 ◽  
pp. 2077-2082
Author(s):  
Young H. Kim ◽  
Sung Jin Song ◽  
Joon Soo Park ◽  
Jae Hee Kim ◽  
Heung Seop Eom

Ultrasonic guided waves have been widely employed for the long range inspection of structures such as plates and pipes. In ultrasonic guided waves, however, there are numerous modes with different wave velocities, so that the generation and detection of the appropriate wave mode of the guided wave is one of key techniques in the application of guided waves. In the present work, mode tuning using an array transducer was investigated with hardware implements. For this purpose, 8-channel ultrasonic pulser and their controller which enables sequential activation of each channels with given time delay were developed. Transmitter tuning, group velocity measurements, reciver tuning, mode identification and long range transmission testing were carried out. As a result, the selective tuning of wave mode can be achieved by changing the time interval between adjacent elements of an array transducer.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Bo Xing ◽  
Zujun Yu ◽  
Xining Xu ◽  
Liqiang Zhu ◽  
Hongmei Shi

The cross-sectional geometry of a rail is complex, and numerous guided wave modes can be propagated in rails. In order to select a mode which is the most suitable for detecting a specific crack on a rail, a mathematical model of guided wave mode selection is constructed. The model is composed of a modal vibration factor and a modal orthogonal factor. By setting a reasonable vibration coefficient and orthogonal coefficient, the mode with the highest sensitivity to cracks is selected for crack detection. Taking a vertical crack on the rail bottom as an example, mode 1 at a frequency of 60 kHz is selected as the most suitable detection mode. At the same time, mode 7 and mode 11 are selected as comparative modes, and these three modes are simulated to detect rail cracks. Among them, mode 1 is the best, which verifies the correctness of the mode selection model. In addition, vertical cracks are manufactured artificially on the side of the rail bottom. The cracks are successfully detected by mode 1, and the positioning error is 0.07 m. After correction, the error is reduced to 0.02 m. The model can effectively select guided wave modes suitable for detecting arbitrary cracks on rails, which provides a theoretical solution for rail crack detection.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Li ◽  
Dan Liu ◽  
Kailiang Xu ◽  
Dean Ta ◽  
Lawrence H. Le ◽  
...  

Ultrasonic guided waves have recently been used in fracture evaluation and fracture healing monitoring. An axial transmission technique has been used to quantify the impact of the gap breakage width and fracture angle on the amplitudes of low order guided wave modesS0andA0under a 100 kHz narrowband excitation. In our two dimensional finite-difference time-domain (2D-FDTD) simulation, the long bones are modeled as three layers with a soft tissue overlay and marrow underlay. The simulations of the transversely and obliquely fractured long bones show that the amplitudes of bothS0andA0decrease as the gap breakage widens. Fixing the crack width, the increase of the fracture angle relative to the cross section perpendicular to the long axis enhances the amplitude ofA0, while the amplitude ofS0shows a nonmonotonic trend with the decrease of the fracture angle. The amplitude ratio between theS0andA0modes is used to quantitatively evaluate the fracture width and angles. The study suggests that the low order guided wave modesS0andA0have potentials for transverse and oblique bone fracture evaluation and fracture healing monitoring.


2020 ◽  
pp. 147592172091969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiang Wan ◽  
Meiru Liu ◽  
Xuhui Zhang ◽  
Hongwei Fan ◽  
Peter W Tse ◽  
...  

Square steel tubes have been widely used in buildings and machines in civil engineering. The inspection of square tubes is becoming increasingly urgent and important to ensure the safety of these buildings and machines. However, the current most frequently used traditional ultrasonic inspection method is time-consuming and inefficient when dealing with long square tubes. There is an urgent need to develop an efficient approach to inspect square tubes. In this article, the use of ultrasonic guided waves is proposed. Phase and group velocity dispersion curves of square tube structures are first derived using the semi-analytical finite element method. An appropriate guided wave mode used for inspecting square tubes is selected. Ultrasonic guided waves propagating in normal, in-plane surface-damaged, and edge-damaged square tubes are numerically studied. It is illustrated that the monitoring points are able to receive reflected wave signals from both the in-plane surface and the edge damages. Experimental studies are also conducted to study ultrasonic guided waves interacting with circular through-hole damages located in surfaces and slot damages at edges. It is shown that both the circular through-hole damages located in different surfaces and slot damages at different edges can be clearly detected by reflected guided wave packets. It is found that the signal-to-noise ratios have been significantly improved after applying impedance matching to piezoelectric wafer transducers. The results have shown that ultrasonic guided waves are a promising and effective method for the inspection of square tubes.


Author(s):  
Z Abbasi ◽  
F Honarvar

In recent years, Higher Order Modes Cluster (HOMC) guided waves have been considered for ultrasonic testing of plates and pipes. HOMC guided waves consist of higher order Lamb wave modes that travel together as a single nondispersive wave packet. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of frequency-thickness value on the contribution of Lamb wave modes in an HOMC guided wave. This is an important issue that has not been thoroughly investigated before. The contribution of each Lamb wave mode in an HOMC guided wave is studied by using a two-dimensional finite element model. The level of contribution of various Lamb wave modes to the wave cluster is verified by using a 2D FFT analysis. The results show that by increasing the frequency-thickness value, the order of contributing modes in the HOMC wave packet increases. The number of modes that comprise a cluster also increases up to a specific frequency-thickness value and then it starts to decrease. Plotting of the cross-sectional displacement patterns along the HOMC guided wave paths confirms the shifting of dominant modes from lower to higher order modes with increase of frequency-thickness value. Experimental measurements conducted on a mild steel plate are used to verify the finite element simulations. The experimental results are found to be in good agreement with simulations and confirm the changes observed in the level of contribution of Lamb wave modes in a wave cluster by changing the frequency-thickness value.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruiqi Guan ◽  
Ye Lu ◽  
Kai Wang ◽  
Zhongqing Su

This study elaborates fundamental differences in fatigue crack detection using nonlinear guided waves between plate and pipe structures and provides an effective approach for analysing nonlinearity in pipe structures. For this purpose, guided wave propagation and interaction with microcrack in a pipe structure, which introduced a contact acoustic nonlinearity, was analysed through a finite element analysis in which the material nonlinearity was also included. To validate the simulation results, experimental testing was performed using piezoelectric transducers to generate guided waves in a specimen with a fatigue crack. Both methods revealed that the second harmonic wave generated by the breathing behaviour of the microcrack in a pipe had multiple wave modes, unlike the plate scenario using nonlinear guided waves. Therefore, a proper index which considered all the generated wave modes due to the microcrack was developed to quantify the nonlinearity, facilitating the identification of microscale damage and further assessment of the severity of the damage in pipe structures.


Abstract. Micro-damages such as pores, closed delamination/debonding and fiber/matrix cracks in carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are vital factors towards the performance of composite structures, which could collapse if defects are not detected in advance. Nonlinear ultrasonic technologies, especially ones involving guided waves, have drawn increasing attention for their better sensitivity to early damages than linear acoustic ones. The combination of nonlinear acoustics and guided waves technique can promisingly provide considerable accuracy and efficiency for damage assessment and materials characterization. Herein, numerical simulations in terms of finite element method are conducted to investigate the feasibility of micro-damage detection in multi-layered CFRP plates using the second harmonic generation (SHG) of asymmetric Lamb guided wave mode. Contact acoustic nonlinearity (CAN) is introduced into the constitutive model of micro-damages in composites, which leads to the distinct SHG compared with material nonlinearity. The results suggest that the generated second order harmonics due to CAN could be received and adopted for early damage evaluation without matching the phase of the primary waves.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Peyton ◽  
Rachel S. Edwards ◽  
Steve Dixon ◽  
Ben Dutton ◽  
Wilson Vesga

Abstract This paper investigates the interaction behaviour between the fundamental shear horizontal guided wave mode and small defects, in order to understand and develop an improved inspection system for titanium samples. In this work, an extensive range of defect sizes have been simulated using finite element software. The SH0 reflection from a defect has been shown previously to depend on its length as the total reflection consists of reflections from both the front and back face. However, for small defect widths, this work has found that the width also affects this interference, changing the length at which the reflection is largest. In addition, the paper looks at how the size of the defect affects the mode converted S0 reflection and SH0 diffraction. The relationship between the SH0 diffraction and defect size is shown to be more complex compared to the reflections. The mode converted S0 reflection occurs at an angle to the incident wave direction; therefore, the most suitable angle for the detection has been found. Simultaneous measurement of multiple waves would bring benefits to inspection.


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