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This paper investigates the method for water ingress detection in an aluminum honeycomb sandwich structure by laser ultrasonics. To clarify the propagation of Scholte waves generated at the solid-liquid interface, the theoretical dispersion curves in the water-aluminum layered structure are calculated by the global matrix method. Using a laser ultrasonic visualizing inspector, the guided wave propagation in the wavefields has been visualized, which shows the mode conversion behaviors occurring in the water ingress area. The clarification of mode conversion is then investigated by the finite element method. The Scholte modes at the solid-fluid interface and the Lamb modes in the face sheet are interconverted because of the change in the waveguide structure. Wavenumber filter reconstruction and the resulting energy maps are applied to illustrate the mode conversion in the wavefields and to detect the water ingress area. Results show that the appearance of the water layer contributes to the mode conversion behaviors during the guided wave propagation in the honeycomb sandwich structure, which offers the potential for water ingress detection based on the mode conversion behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detecting disbonds in honeycomb sandwich structures using ultrasonics is challenging due to the complex wave propagation. This paper investigates the method for disbond quantification in honeycomb sandwich structures using laser ultrasonics. In the experiments on an aluminum specimen, the detection frequency range was determined by the local defect resonance (LDR) in the disbond regions. The energy maps of bandpass wavefields identified the locations of disbonds. To improve the results, a frequency-wavenumber analysis of the wavefields was performed. The wavenumber spectra were reconstructed by wavenumber filtering to strengthen the outline components for quantifying disbonds. Local cross-correlation (LCC) was proposed to show the outlines of disbonds and honeycomb cells, whose results agreed well with the X-ray imaging. Moreover, LCC could also quantify a disbond in the composite honeycomb sandwich structure. Consequently, combining energy maps and LCC results can effectively detect the locations and sizes of disbonds in honeycomb sandwich structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, we attempt to establish a reliable structural health monitoring technique for composite materials by combining phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating sensing with the laser ultrasonic visualization technology. In the first part of this article, a novel cross-adhesion configuration is designed to resolve the directionality problem of the phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating ultrasonic sensing. In the adhesion configuration, Lamb waves are guided by an orthogonally bonded optical fiber from the adhesion point to the phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating sensor. The analysis of the ultrasonic measurement results reveals that the proposed adhesion method enables us to use one sensor to receive Lamb waves in all in-plane directions with similar magnitude because two wave components propagating along with the two orthogonal directions are guided to the phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating sensor and exhibit a linear superposition in the sensor. This simplified configuration gives our method an advantage over the existing approaches, such as the rosette configuration in which three or more phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating sensors are required to relieve the sensing directionality. The phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating ultrasonic sensor with the proposed adhesion configuration is then applied to visualize the propagation of ultrasonic waves in aluminum plates and carbon fiber–reinforced plastic laminates. Those verification experiments also show us that the new adhesion configuration is effective at protecting the phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating ultrasonic measurement from the sensing directionality. Meanwhile, the broad bandwidth of the phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating sensor enables us to visualize the propagation behavior of various Lamb wave modes over a broad frequency range. Finally, we also validate that the ultrasonic visualization technique merged with the phase-shifted fiber-optic Bragg grating ultrasonic sensing can be used to identify the hidden damage in the carbon fiber–reinforced plastic composite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visualizing the propagation of Lamb waves generated by scanning laser injection is a promising and effective method for the nondestructive inspection of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) structures. We evaluate the use of two-dimensional time-slowness maps of the acquired data for defect detection in CFRP laminates. The slowness maps can be constructed from the differences in wave propagation characteristics between two adjacent laser injection points. Using a CFRP plate, in which an artificial delamination is located at the center, we show that the delamination can be clearly observed as a hotspot in the two-dimensional slowness map. The visible hotspot is due to the dispersion of the lowest antisymmetric (A 0) mode of the Lamb wave: the A 0 mode slows down at the delaminated region. We also demonstrate that our method can be applied to an L-shaped structure. Two-dimensional slowness images can be useful for developing and applying practical inspection methods based on laser ultrasonic waves. • ・Defects in CFRP laminates are inspected using laser ultrasonic guided waves. • ・A two-dimensional slowness map is made from the data obtained by scanning laser. • ・The slowness map is simple and useful for defect detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detection of transverse crack (TC) is important in establishing reliable structural health monitoring (SHM) and nondestructive inspection (NDI) for warning the potential occurrence of large-scale damage in carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) structures at an earlier stage. In this research, a diagnostic method that is sensitive to a single TC was established by visualizing laser-induced guided ultrasonic waves in a cross-ply CFRP laminate. First, the phenomenon of TC-induced mode conversion in the laminate was clarified using finite element analysis (FEA) of harmonic oscillations. This FEA method is explicit and precise for investigating the conversion behavior of individual modes in a cracked plate. Then, the conversion phenomenon was also validated by another FEA-based pulse laser ultrasonic simulation. Finally, to observe the mode conversion phenomenon in practice, we conducted an experiment with a laser ultrasonic visualizing inspector (LUVI). The LUVI system could visualize the wave propagation in a two-dimensional (2D) wavefield that was formed on the surface of the CFRP cross-ply laminate with a single TC. By observing the image results of wave propagation, we verified that the wave component of the A 0 mode was converted from the S 0 mode at a TC even though the converted A 0 mode had a much smaller amplitude than the incident S 0 mode in the cross-ply CFRP laminate. Thus, those visualization results could be used to detect a single TC in the CFRP cross-ply laminate reliably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose a novel laser ultrasonic visualization technique using an optical fiber sensor. • The developed system can visualize the propagation of Lamb wave at 1000 °C temperature. • Wavenumber-frequency analysis is applicable to the visualized results at the elevated temperature. • Damage detection is realized by means of the system under the high-temperature environment. Structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques are required to evaluate the reliability of aging heat-resistant structures. To build a method of high-temperature in situ damage diagnosis, the authors developed a laser ultrasonic visualization system with a heat-resistant fiber-optic Bragg grating (FBG) sensing configuration. In this system, an ultrasonic wave is excited by laser irradiation on the surface of a material and then received by a remotely installed FBG sensor. Because both the wave excitation and wave sensing parts have excellent heat resistance, the proposed sensing system enables a stable ultrasonic measurement at a temperature of 1000 °C. In this research, a wavenumber-frequency analysis shows that the proposed sensing system was able to visualize the correct laser ultrasonic wavefield in a planar structure. The ultrasonic visualization performance was then verified for a plate of heat-resistant material at temperatures of 200 and 1000 °C. A wavenumber-frequency analysis based on a three-dimensional Fourier transform was also conducted to extract the wave components corresponding to the reflection caused by an artificial defect in the plate. As a result, the developed method enabled clear damage identification at temperatures as high as 1000 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a local defect resonance (LDR)-based approach to detect barely visible impact damages (BVIDs) in woven CFRP laminates using laser-ultrasonic guided waves. In the experiments, broadband guided waves were excited by an Nd:YAG pulsed laser to induce resonant vibrations of BVIDs. The laser was scanned on the designed area of the woven CFRP laminates by using a galvano mirror system. A fixed broadband PZT sensor received the waves propagated from all the laser irradiation points and the datasets of the recorded waveforms were further processed to visualize the wavefield in the scanned area. A robust post-processing method was proposed to extract automatically the LDR frequencies and to obtain the image of the BVID. The feasibility of the proposed method was well validated on a woven CFRP laminate with a single BVID. In order to evaluate the detection performance, we compared our proposed method with other traditional methods, i.e., root mean square (RMS) and weighted RMS. As a result, it was found that our proposed post-processing procedure could visualize the BVID with higher contrast. Furthermore, the detection of multiple BVIDs using the developed method was demonstrated successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]