Dispersion analysis of composite acousto-elastic waveguides

Propagation characteristics of guided waves are widely utilized for nondestructive characterization of laminated composites which are often immersed in fluid. These propagation characteristics are quantified through dispersion and attenuation curves, and need to be computed for a large number of estimated structure and material property combinations, over a wide range of frequencies. To solve this central problem, an efficient approach is proposed for dispersion analysis of three types of immersed waveguides: laminated plates; laminated rods and pipes; composite waveguides with generic cross-section. The approach is based on Semi-Analytical Finite Element (SAFE) method enhanced with two novel discretization methods: Complex-length Finite Element Method (CFEM) for the solid domain and Perfectly Matched Discrete Layers (PMDL) for the surrounding fluid. The resulting approach is computationally more efficient than the existing methods in that it keeps the underlying eigenvalue problem linear and substantially smaller. The paper presents the basic ideas of the proposed approach, specific algorithms for determining the discretization parameters, and open-source implementation of the resulting waveguide models. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the method's efficiency. Finally, the theoretical predictions from the method are validated using experimental observations for several structural members.