Assessment of accumulated fatigue damage in solid plates using nonlinear Lamb wave approach

The feasibility of using the nonlinear effect of primary Lamb wave propagation for assessing accumulated fatigue damage in solid plates is theoretically analyzed. After the aluminum sheets are subjected to tension-tension fatigue loading for different numbers of loading cycles, they are subjected to ultrasonic tests near the driving frequency where Lamb waves have a strong nonlinearity. This is followed by the measurement of the amplitude-frequency curves for second harmonics of the considered Lamb waves. The experimental results show that the effect of second-harmonic generation by Lamb wave propagation is very sensitive to the accumulation of fatigue damage of solid plates. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.