A Defect Localization Procedure Based on Warped Lamb Waves

Passive defect location procedures based on ultrasonic guided waves are widely used for structural health monitoring purposes of plate-like structures. Approaches based on the measured time-of-flight delay of propagating waves recorded at different locations are generally adopted. In these approaches, uncertainties are due to the fixed speed assumed for the incoming waves to convert their time delay in distances. These distances are next used to solve a triangulation scheme that leads to the defect location. In this paper, this inconvenient is avoided by processing the time transient measurements acquired at the different locations with a “Warped Frequency Transform” (WFT) that is capable to reveal the distance travelled by dispersive waves. In fact, by means of the WFT the recorded time waveform is converted into the incipient pulse at a distance from the origin which is proportional to the distance travelled by a mode within the signal, thus fully compensating its dispersive effect. Then, the processed time waveforms recorded from simple sensors can be used for locating defects by means of classical triangulation procedures.