Effects of local stiffness changes and delamination on Lamb wave transmission using surface-mounted piezoelectric transducers

The paper presents a set of numerical results on the use of surface mounted piezoelectric transducers to analyse the effects of impact damage and delamination of plate-like structures on the Lamb wave mode. The effects of the size, properties and orientation of the damage upon a propagating Lamb wave is qualitatively determined. In this paper, impact damage was simulated by a local change in the stiffness of the material in the structure and a delamination. The effects on the transmission of the incident Lamb wave when it propagates through a region of change in density are analysed. This paper will also demonstrate how the properties of a propagating Lamb wave can be affected by the existence of a delamination in a plate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]