Necessary conditions for nonlinear ultrasonic modulation generation given a localized fatigue crack in a plate-like structure

Abstract

It has been shown that nonlinear ultrasonics can be more sensitive to local incipient defects, such as a fatigue crack, than conventional linear ultrasonics. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in utilizing nonlinear ultrasonics for structural health monitoring and nondestructive testing applications. While the conditions, which are the necessary conditions that should be satisfied for the generation of nonlinear harmonic components, are extensively studied for distributed material nonlinearity, little work has been done to understand the necessary conditions at the presence of a localized nonlinear source such as a fatigue crack. In this paper, the necessary conditions of nonlinear ultrasonic modulation generation in a plate-like structure are formulated specifically for a localized nonlinear source. Then, the correctness of the formulated necessary conditions is experimentally verified using ultrasounds obtained from aluminum plates.