Ultrasonic guided wave scattering in a plate overlap

Guided wave scattering in a plate overlap is investigated by numerical calculations and experimental measurements of transmission and reflection factors from the overlap region. In the numerical study, a hybrid boundary element-finite element method is used to calculate the guided wave scattered field from the overlap region. Transmission and reflection factors are calculated for incident A0 and S0 Lamb and n0 shear horizontal waves, including higher modes generated through mode conversion phenomena. In addition, parametric studies of transmission and reflection factors in this problem are performed numerically over various incident modes, frequencies, and overlap lengths. For verification and comparison with numerical results, experiments were conducted to measure the transmission and reflection factors for incident Lamb and shear horizontal waves in steel plates with two different overlap areas. The experimental results agree well with the numerical calculations. The numerical and experimental results show that it is highly feasible to carry out efficient Lamb wave nondestructive evaluation (NDE) in overlapped plates and in multilayer structures with various lap joints by selecting various modes and tuning frequency.