Detection of defects in thin-walled structures by means of Lamb waves.

In this paper the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method (SBFEM) is applied for the simulation of Lamb waves in cracked plates. This method is highly advantageous to study the interaction of different Lamb wave modes with cracks as the crack is not discretized and no refinement is required around the crack tip. Numerical examples are presented for the reflection of the fundamental symmetric and antisymmetric modes from cracks of different depth. The spatial Fourier transformation is employed to calculate the amplitudes of reflected Lamb wave modes. The results reveal possibilities to obtain details of the crack geometry in non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]