Damage assessment in composites by Lamb waves and wavelet coefficients

A wavelet technique was used in an active system for the damage detection of aerospace composites. The active system was based on the generation and reception of Lamb waves by embedded piezoceramic transducers. The wavelets were used to decompose the Lamb-wave response into wavelet coefficients. The decomposition performance was improved by utilizing more adapted wavelets, based on the recurrent waveforms of Lamb waves. The changes in the Lamb waves interacting with damage in the plate were successfully characterized by this wavelet technique, through the amplitude change of the wavelet coefficients. The wavelet technique also showed great sensitivity in detecting damage of small sizes. This technique was found to be straightforward for detection of impact damage and evaluation of the damage size.