A Lamb wave quantification model for inclined cracks with experimental validation

This paper investigates the influence of crack orientation on damage quantification using Lamb wave in plate structures. Finite element simulation is performed to acquire Lamb wave signal responses for different configurations of crack orientations and crack lengths. Two Lamb wave features, namely the normalized amplitude and the phase change, are used as damage sensitive features to develop a crack size quantification model. A hypothesis based on the geometrical influence on signal features is proposed, and the crack size quantification model incorporating the orientation angle is established using the hypothesis. An index of Probability of Reliable Quantification (PRQ) is proposed to evaluate the performance of the model. The index can be used to determine the sizing risk in terms of probabilities. A realistic aluminum plate is used to obtain the experimental data using piezoelectric (PZT) wafer-type sensors around a center through crack. The experimental data are used to validate the overall method. Results indicate that the proposed model can yield reliable results for size quantification of inclined cracks.