Visualization Studies of Lamb Wave Propagation and Interactions with Anomalies in Composite Laminates Using Air-coupled Ultrasonics.

An experimental method to visualize the propagation of ultrasonic Lamb waves in composite plates with delaminations, using air coupled ultrasonic transducers, is described here. Using this method experiments are done, on glass fiber reinforced plastic(GFRP) laminates, to study the Lamb wave interactions with delamination type defects. The S0 and A0 modes are chosen for experiments at an excitation frequency of 200 kHz. Defect dimensions are calculated from the visualization images and compared with actual values. A method for detecting depth of defects using deviation of wave-fronts, at the defect contours, is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]