scholarly journals Mode Selection Model for Rail Crack Detection Based on Ultrasonic Guided Waves

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Bo Xing ◽  
Zujun Yu ◽  
Xining Xu ◽  
Liqiang Zhu ◽  
Hongmei Shi

The cross-sectional geometry of a rail is complex, and numerous guided wave modes can be propagated in rails. In order to select a mode which is the most suitable for detecting a specific crack on a rail, a mathematical model of guided wave mode selection is constructed. The model is composed of a modal vibration factor and a modal orthogonal factor. By setting a reasonable vibration coefficient and orthogonal coefficient, the mode with the highest sensitivity to cracks is selected for crack detection. Taking a vertical crack on the rail bottom as an example, mode 1 at a frequency of 60 kHz is selected as the most suitable detection mode. At the same time, mode 7 and mode 11 are selected as comparative modes, and these three modes are simulated to detect rail cracks. Among them, mode 1 is the best, which verifies the correctness of the mode selection model. In addition, vertical cracks are manufactured artificially on the side of the rail bottom. The cracks are successfully detected by mode 1, and the positioning error is 0.07 m. After correction, the error is reduced to 0.02 m. The model can effectively select guided wave modes suitable for detecting arbitrary cracks on rails, which provides a theoretical solution for rail crack detection.

Author(s):  
Z Abbasi ◽  
F Honarvar

In recent years, Higher Order Modes Cluster (HOMC) guided waves have been considered for ultrasonic testing of plates and pipes. HOMC guided waves consist of higher order Lamb wave modes that travel together as a single nondispersive wave packet. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of frequency-thickness value on the contribution of Lamb wave modes in an HOMC guided wave. This is an important issue that has not been thoroughly investigated before. The contribution of each Lamb wave mode in an HOMC guided wave is studied by using a two-dimensional finite element model. The level of contribution of various Lamb wave modes to the wave cluster is verified by using a 2D FFT analysis. The results show that by increasing the frequency-thickness value, the order of contributing modes in the HOMC wave packet increases. The number of modes that comprise a cluster also increases up to a specific frequency-thickness value and then it starts to decrease. Plotting of the cross-sectional displacement patterns along the HOMC guided wave paths confirms the shifting of dominant modes from lower to higher order modes with increase of frequency-thickness value. Experimental measurements conducted on a mild steel plate are used to verify the finite element simulations. The experimental results are found to be in good agreement with simulations and confirm the changes observed in the level of contribution of Lamb wave modes in a wave cluster by changing the frequency-thickness value.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruiqi Guan ◽  
Ye Lu ◽  
Kai Wang ◽  
Zhongqing Su

This study elaborates fundamental differences in fatigue crack detection using nonlinear guided waves between plate and pipe structures and provides an effective approach for analysing nonlinearity in pipe structures. For this purpose, guided wave propagation and interaction with microcrack in a pipe structure, which introduced a contact acoustic nonlinearity, was analysed through a finite element analysis in which the material nonlinearity was also included. To validate the simulation results, experimental testing was performed using piezoelectric transducers to generate guided waves in a specimen with a fatigue crack. Both methods revealed that the second harmonic wave generated by the breathing behaviour of the microcrack in a pipe had multiple wave modes, unlike the plate scenario using nonlinear guided waves. Therefore, a proper index which considered all the generated wave modes due to the microcrack was developed to quantify the nonlinearity, facilitating the identification of microscale damage and further assessment of the severity of the damage in pipe structures.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 2819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonghee Lee ◽  
Younho Cho

The containment liner plate (CLP) in a nuclear power plant is the most critical part of the structure of a power plant, as it prevents the radioactive contamination of the surrounding area. This paper presents feasibility of structural health monitoring (SHM) and an elastic wave tomography method based on ultrasonic guided waves (GW), for evaluating the integrity of CLP. It aims to check the integrity for a dynamic response to a damaged isotropic structure. The proposed SHM technique relies on sensors and, therefore, it can be placed on the structure permanently and can monitor either passively or actively. For applying this method, a suitable guided wave mode tuning is required to verify wave propagation. A finite element analysis (FEA) is performed to figure out the suitable GW mode for a CLP by considering geometric and material condition. Furthermore, elastic wave tomography technique is modified to evaluate the CLP condition and its visualization. A modified reconstruction algorithm for the probabilistic inspection of damage tomography algorithm is used to quantify corrosion defects in the CLP. The location and shape of the wall-thinning defects are successfully obtained by using elastic GW based SHM. Making full use of verified GW mode to Omni-directional transducer, it can be expected to improve utilization of the SHM based evaluation technique for CLP.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xining Xu ◽  
Bo Xing ◽  
Lu Zhuang ◽  
Hongmei Shi ◽  
Liqiang Zhu

The cross-section of a rail has a complex geometry, and there are many propagating modes of ultrasonic guided waves in a rail. The analysis of mode shapes or the cross-sectional wave structure is of high significance to the design of an appropriate wave excitation approach for long-range defect detection of a rail. Traditionally, the semi-analytical finite elements (SAFE) method is used to obtain ultrasonic guided waves’ dispersion curves of a rail. Then, through solving the eigenvectors, it is able to calculate the displacement values of discrete nodes in three degrees of freedom (DOFs) and further obtain the wave structures. In this paper, a graphical analysis method of guided wave mode shapes is proposed. The displacements of each node in three DOFs are converted into Red Green Blue (RGB) image pixels, and the complex vibration vector data is expressed by an image. Therefore, the graphical analysis of mode shapes can be realized by using conventional image processing methods without the design of special data processing algorithms. This will improve the processing efficiency, and it is more intuitive and easier to analyze the vibration displacements represented by the image. The simulation results show that the proposed graphical analysis method can quickly and precisely locate the excitation position of the guided wave mode in the rail. By adopting image processing methods, such as the K-means clustering algorithm, the guided wave modes at a 35 kHz frequency in a rail are classified according to their mode shapes. Classification is essential for exploring the relations and fundamentals of vibrations in modes. The graphical analysis method proposed in this paper provides a novel method for the mode analysis of guided waves in rails.


2013 ◽  
Vol 113 (14) ◽  
pp. 144904 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pasi Karppinen ◽  
Ari Salmi ◽  
Petro Moilanen ◽  
Timo Karppinen ◽  
Zuomin Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract. Micro-damages such as pores, closed delamination/debonding and fiber/matrix cracks in carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are vital factors towards the performance of composite structures, which could collapse if defects are not detected in advance. Nonlinear ultrasonic technologies, especially ones involving guided waves, have drawn increasing attention for their better sensitivity to early damages than linear acoustic ones. The combination of nonlinear acoustics and guided waves technique can promisingly provide considerable accuracy and efficiency for damage assessment and materials characterization. Herein, numerical simulations in terms of finite element method are conducted to investigate the feasibility of micro-damage detection in multi-layered CFRP plates using the second harmonic generation (SHG) of asymmetric Lamb guided wave mode. Contact acoustic nonlinearity (CAN) is introduced into the constitutive model of micro-damages in composites, which leads to the distinct SHG compared with material nonlinearity. The results suggest that the generated second order harmonics due to CAN could be received and adopted for early damage evaluation without matching the phase of the primary waves.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Peyton ◽  
Rachel S. Edwards ◽  
Steve Dixon ◽  
Ben Dutton ◽  
Wilson Vesga

Abstract This paper investigates the interaction behaviour between the fundamental shear horizontal guided wave mode and small defects, in order to understand and develop an improved inspection system for titanium samples. In this work, an extensive range of defect sizes have been simulated using finite element software. The SH0 reflection from a defect has been shown previously to depend on its length as the total reflection consists of reflections from both the front and back face. However, for small defect widths, this work has found that the width also affects this interference, changing the length at which the reflection is largest. In addition, the paper looks at how the size of the defect affects the mode converted S0 reflection and SH0 diffraction. The relationship between the SH0 diffraction and defect size is shown to be more complex compared to the reflections. The mode converted S0 reflection occurs at an angle to the incident wave direction; therefore, the most suitable angle for the detection has been found. Simultaneous measurement of multiple waves would bring benefits to inspection.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (24) ◽  
pp. 5443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anurag Dhutti ◽  
Saiful Asmin Tumin ◽  
Wamadeva Balachandran ◽  
Jamil Kanfoud ◽  
Tat-Hean Gan

High-temperature (HT) ultrasonic transducers are of increasing interest for structural health monitoring (SHM) of structures operating in harsh environments. This article focuses on the development of an HT piezoelectric wafer active sensor (HT-PWAS) for SHM of HT pipelines using ultrasonic guided waves. The PWAS was fabricated using Y-cut gallium phosphate (GaPO4) to produce a torsional guided wave mode on pipes operating at temperatures up to 600 °C. A number of confidence-building tests on the PWAS were carried out. HT electromechanical impedance (EMI) spectroscopy was performed to characterise piezoelectric properties at elevated temperatures and over long periods of time (>1000 h). Laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) was used to verify the modes of vibration. A finite element model of GaPO4 PWAS was developed to model the electromechanical behaviour of the PWAS and the effect of increasing temperatures, and it was validated using EMI and LDV experimental data. This study demonstrates the application of GaPO4 for guided-wave SHM of pipelines and presents a model that can be used to evaluate different transducer designs for HT applications.


Author(s):  
Owen M. Malinowski ◽  
Matthew S. Lindsey ◽  
Jason K. Van Velsor

In the past few decades, ultrasonic guided waves have been utilized more frequently Non-Destructive Testing (NDT); most notably, in the qualitative screening of buried piping. However, only a fraction of their potential applications in NDT have been fully realized. This is due, in part, to their complex nature, as well as the high level of expertise required to understand and utilize their propagation characteristics. The mode/frequency combinations that can be generated in a particular structure depend on geometry and material properties and are represented by the so-called dispersion curves. Although extensive research has been done in ultrasonic guided wave propagation in various geometries and materials, the treatment of ultrasonic guided wave propagation in periodic structures has received little attention. In this paper, academic aspects of ultrasonic guided wave propagation in structures with periodicity in the wave vector direction are investigated, with the practical purpose of developing an ultrasonic guided wave based inspection technique for finned tubing. Theoretical, numerical, and experimental methods are employed. The results of this investigation show excellent agreement between theory, numerical modeling, and experimentation; all of which indicate that ultrasonic guided waves will propagate coherently in finned tube only if the proper wave modes and frequencies are selected. It is shown that the frequencies at which propagating wave modes exist can be predicted theoretically and numerically, and depend strongly on the fin geometry. Furthermore, the results show that these propagating wave modes are capable of screening for and identifying the axial location of damage in the tube wall, as well as separation of the fins from the tube wall. The conclusion drawn from these results is that Guided Wave Testing (GWT) is a viable inspection method for screening finned tubing.


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