Ultrasonic vibration for structural health monitoring

Guided waves and vibration analysis are two useful techniques in Nondestructive Evaluation and Structural Health Monitoring. Bridging the gap between guided waves and vibration, a novel testing method ultrasonic vibration is demonstrated here. Ultrasonic vibration is capable to achieve defect detection sensitivity as ultrasonic guided waves, while maintaining the efficiency of traditional vibration in the way of adopting several sensors to cover the whole structure. In this new method, continuous guided wave energy will impinge into the structure to make the structure vibrate steadily. The steady state vibration is achieved after multiple boundary reflections of the continuous guided wave. In ultrasonic vibration experiments, annual array transducer is used as the actuator. The loading functions are tuned by the frequencies and phase delays among each transducer element. Experiments demonstrate good defect detection ability of by optimally selecting guided wave loadings.