Noncontact excitation of guided waves (A0 mode) using an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT)

Abstract

Fatigue damage can develop in aircraft structures at locations of stress concentration, such as fasteners, and has to be detected before reaching a critical size to ensure safe aircraft operation. Guided ultrasonic waves offer an efficient method for the detection and characterization of such defects in large aerospace structures. Electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMAT) for the noncontact excitation of guided ultrasonic waves were developed. The transducer development for the specific excitation of the A0 Lamb wave mode with an out-of-plane Lorentz force is explained. The achieved radial and angular dependency of the excited guided wave pulses were measured using a noncontact laser interferometer. Based on the induced eddy currents in the plate a theoretical model was developed. The application of the developed transducers for defect detection in aluminum components using fully noncontact guided wave measurements was demonstrated. Excitation of the A0 Lamb wave mode was achieved using the developed EMAT transducer and the guided wave propagation and scattering was measured using a noncontact laser interferometer.