Simulation of Interaction Between Lamb Waves and Cracks for Structural Health Monitoring With Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors

In this paper, the detection for two kinds of cracks is studied: (1) linear notch crack; (2) nonlinear breathing crack. A pitch-catch method with piezoelectric wafer actives sensors (PWAS) is used to interrogate an aluminum plate with a linear notch crack and a nonlinear breathing crack respectively as two cases. The inspection Lamb waves generated by the transmitter PWAS, propagate into the structure, interact with the crack, acquire crack information and are picked up by the receiver PWAS. The linear notch crack case is investigated through: (1) analytical model developed for Lamb waves interacting with a general linear damage; (2) finite element simulation. The breathing crack, which acts as a nonlinear source, is simulated using two approaches: (1) element activation/deactivation technique; (2) contact model. The theory and solving scheme of the proposed element activation/deactivation approach is discussed in detail. The signal features of different damage severities are analyzed. Crack opening, closing, stress concentration, surface collision phenomena are noticed for the breathing cracks. Mode conversion is noticed for both crack cases. The generation mechanism and mode components of the new wave packets are investigated by studying the particle motion through the plate thickness. A damage index is proposed based on the spectral amplitude ratio between the second harmonic and the excitation frequency for the breathing crack. The damage index is found capable of estimating the presence and severity of the breathing crack. The paper finishes with summary and conclusions.