A rapid, fully non-contact, hybrid system for generating Lamb wave dispersion curves

• Lamb wave dispersion curves in isotropic plates were found using non-contact method.
• Snell’s law concept was used to find Lamb wave dispersion curves.
• A relation between the Lamb wave group velocity and the incident angle is derived.
• Group velocity curve was found directly from the incident angle/frequency curve.
• The presented method is single-sided, robust and rapid NDI technique.

A rapid, fully non-contact, hybrid system which encompasses an air-coupled transducer (ACT) and a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) is presented for profiling A0 Lamb wave dispersion of an isotropic aluminum plate. The ACT generates ultrasonic pressure incident upon the surface of the plate. The pressure waves are partially refracted into the plate. The LDV is employed to measure the out-of-plane velocity of the excited Lamb wave mode at some distances where the Lamb waves are formed in the plate. The influence of the ACT angle of incidence on Lamb wave excitation is investigated and Snell’s law is used to directly compute Lamb wave dispersion curves including phase and group velocity dispersion curves in aluminum plates from incident angles found to generate optimal A0 Lamb wave mode. The measured curves are compared to results obtained from a two-dimensional (2-D) Fast Fourier transform (FFT), Morlet wavelet transform (MWT) and theoretical predictions. It was concluded that the experimental results obtained using Snell’s law concept are well in accordance with the theoretical solutions. The high degree of accuracy in the measured data with the theoretical results proved a high sensitivity of the air-coupled and laser ultrasound in characterizing Lamb wave dispersion in plate-like structures. The proposed non-contact hybrid system can effectively characterize the dispersive relation without knowledge of neither the materials characteristics nor the mathematical model.