Crack characterization using guided circumferential waves

Abstract

This paper examines the propagation of guided circumferential waves in a hollow isotropic cylinder that contains a crack, with the goal of using these guided waves to both locate and size the crack. The crack is sized using a modified Auld’s formula, which relates the crack’s length to a reflected energy coefficient. The crack is then located by operating on the backscattered signal with a time-frequency digital signal processing (DSP) technique, and then comparing these results to those obtained if the cylinder is perfect. The guided circumferential waves are generated with a commercial finite element method (FEM) code. One objective of this work is to demonstrate the effectiveness of using sophisticated DSP techniques to describe the effect of scattering on dispersive waves, showing it is possible to characterize cracks systematically and accurately by quantifying this scattering effect. The results show that the need for high frequency signals to detect small cracks is significantly decreased by using these techniques.