Dispersion analysis of Lamb waves and damage detection for aluminum structures using ridge in the time-scale domain

In this paper, the dispersion of Lamb waves in aluminum structures was systematically analyzed to differentiate the mode of each package in Lamb wave signals and localize damage. Piezoelectric transducers were bonded on the surfaces of aluminum structures, functioning as actuator and sensor to excite and acquire Lamb waves, respectively. Wavelet transform was applied to the acquired Lamb wave signals, in which the optimal mother wavelet was selected using the concept of Shannon entropy to obtain the most accurate location of each wave package. The ridge and contour of the Lamb wave signals in the time-scale domain were obtained to distinguish the mode of each wave package and pinpoint these packages for estimating the actual group velocities of dispersion curves and localizing damage. The proposed approach could help search the actual dispersion curves in the excitation frequency band by using only one Lamb wave signal. Ridges in the time-scale domain and the actual group velocities were further used to identify damage in the structures. Results demonstrate that the proposed approaches were effective in dispersion analysis, wave mode differentiation and damage localization.