Lamb Wave Propagation in Thermally Damaged Composites

Abstract

Lamb waves offer a promising method of evaluating damage in composite materials [1-2]. As a material is thermally damaged, the material properties are altered. Since the Lamb wave velocity is directly related to these parameters, an effective tool can be devel- oped to monitor damage in composites by measuring the velocity of these waves. Lamb waves can propagate several tens of centimeters for most thin planar structures and thus, provide a large gauge length measurement. If the measurement is made as a raster scan in two orthogonal directions over the area of interest, a rapid detection technique is possible.