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Laser Ultrasound Imaging of Lamb Waves in Thin Plates

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Abstract

Laser ultrasound offers many advantages over conventional piezoelectric ultrasound including the potential for rapid wide-area scanning, non-contacting (no couplant) generation and sensing, and large bandwidth1, 2. Ultrasonic surface waves may be easily generated by a laser and can travel extended distances when the part is not immersed and loss to a surrounding water bath is eliminated. In addition, the geometric attenuation is significantly less as the sound energy spreads out in a circular annulus rather than in a spherical shell giving rise to an amplitude decay proportional to r -1/2. We have shown that synthetic focusing of laser ultrasound data3 permits us to use this information to create images of near-surface defects outside the scan area. A single scan line can be used to image the complete surface of part with high speed, resolution, and sensitivity (Figure 1).

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Reference

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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Lorraine, P.W. (1998). Laser Ultrasound Imaging of Lamb Waves in Thin Plates. In: Green, R.E. (eds) Nondestructive Characterization of Materials VIII. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4847-8_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4847-8_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-7198-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-4847-8

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