Selective generation of Lamb wave modes and their propagation characteristics in defective composite laminates

Techniques for the generation of Lamb waves with purpose of non-destructive inspection (NDI) were briefly reviewed. An active excitation control circuit was designed and instrumented with an online damage diagnosis system, by which the desired fundamental symmetric Lamb mode, shear mode and antisymmetric mode can be selectively stimulated. A signal processing and identification algorithm in the timescale domain, using spectrographic analyses based on the wavelet transform technique, was developed to assist the wave signal interpretation. The proposed excitation methodology was applied to the study of the dispersion and propagation characteristics of Lamb waves in quasi-isotropic CF/EP composite laminates with delamination. For validation, numerical simulations were conducted in parallel with experimental investigations.