Scattering of guided waves by through-thickness cavities with irregular shapes

This paper investigates the three-dimensional (3D) scattering of guided waves by a through-thickness cavity with irregular shape in an isotropic plate. The scattered field is decomposed on the basis of Lamb and SH waves (propagating and non-propagating), and the amplitude of the modes is calculated by writing the nullity of the total stress at the boundary of the cavity. In the boundary conditions, the functions depend on the through-thickness coordinate, z, but contrary to the case where the cavity has a circular shape, they also depend on the angular coordinate θ. This is dealt with by projecting the z-dependent functions onto a basis of orthogonal functions, and by expanding the θ-dependent functions in Fourier series. Examples include the scattering of the S0, SH0 and A0 modes by elliptical cavities with different values of aspect ratio, and the scattering of the S0 mode by a cavity with an arbitrary shape. Results obtained with this model are compared with results obtained with the finite element (FE) method, showing very good agreement.

Research highlights
► We study the scattering of guided waves by cavities with irregular shapes in plates.
► We develop an analytical model and compare it to a finite element model.
► We present 2 examples: through-thickness cavities with elliptical and arbitrary shape.
► Results from the analytical and the finite element models show very good agreement.