Guided Wave Testing of Water Loaded Structures

by Joseph L. Rose*

This month's "NDT Solution" presents the solution for guided wave
testing of water loaded structures. This is another example of
taking the technology from the laboratory into industrial
applications. The author also presents how this solution enabled
the development of a wing ice detection system for aircraft.
G.P Singh
Associate Technical Editor

Introduction

How is guided wave testing conducted on a structure that is water loaded? One can
guess that attenuation will occur in a plate or in a pipe that is water loaded. In general,
there is leakage of energy into the fluid. If we consider how leakage might occur, we can
imagine two kinds of displacement on the surface of a plate or pipe that contains water.
In plane displacement on the surface of a plate or pipe will not leak into the water, since
water cannot support shear wave propagation. There is no shear modulus. On the other
hand, the out of plane displacement component applies a pressure component to the
fluid that can easily propagate into the fluid as a compressional wave. As the wave
propagates in the solid structure, we can easily imagine series of disturbances that
propagate into the fluid, hence the term "leaky wave."

Wave Propagation
In Figure 1, note the series of spherical waves that propagate into the fluid. As the point
source moves along the interface, consider Huygen's principle of spherical wave
propagation from the point source for homogeneous isotropic media. As a result,
spherical waves also propagate into the fluid. The tangent to the spherical waves is the
leaky wave wavefront. This cannot happen for a shear loading of the fluid or the in plane
displacement load. Now that we know what happens, the solution for guided wave
testing of water loaded structures is simply to find a wave that has no out of plane
component (or, hence, only an in plane component).

Pipes or tubes, therefore, can be tested even if external

or internal water loading is present.
This can be accomplished by using a horizontal shear wave in a plate, which is basically
equivalent to a torsional wave in a tubular structure. A lamb wave could also be used if
we could find a point on the dispersion curve with a dominant in plane displacement
component that has very little out of plane displacement. If we can find any of these two
situations from an experimental testing point of view, we will indeed be able to
propagate guided waves in a structure over a very long distance, with very little energy
loss due to a leaky wave.

Figure 1 - Leaky wave propagation principle.

Lamb and Shear Horizontal Waves

Figure 2 shows the particle displacement vector for lamb and shear horizontal waves.
Note that propagation characteristics of a shear horizontal wave in a plate are the same
as torsional waves in a pipe.

Figure 2 - Lamb versus shear horizontal wave displacement components in a plate.

Wave vector k is in the direction of wave propagation with u and w displacement for the
lamb wave case and only v for the shear horizontal case.

For a lamb wave, if we were to consider along the vertical axis of a phase velocity
dispersion curve the actual dilatational wave velocity value (the fastest bulk wave
velocity that could occur in a material) and sketch a horizontal line across the dispersion
curve, the intersection of this horizontal line with all of the symmetric modes is at a point
that has a totally in plane longitudinal displacement component (Pilarski et al., 1993). All
other points on the curves have some out of plane component. As a result of using lamb
waves in a structure that is water loaded, any one of these points on the dispersion
curve could be selected to conduct the test. On the other hand, if we were to use
horizontal shear or torsional modes the problem's solution is more straightforward, since
only in plane displacement components exist at all points on the dispersion curve and
all points would therefore work quite effectively. No energy leakage will take place into
the fluid. Keep in mind, however, that a reflected wave from a three dimensional
discontinuity could have associated with it a leaky wave because of the complex mode
conversion with u, v, and w displacement components.

Water Loaded Structures

Pipes or tubes, therefore, can be tested even if external or internal water loading is
present. Either lamb or torsional modes could be used. Consider two simple
experiments on a 76 mm (3 in.) diameter schedule 40 steel pipe, with a small 30% deep
saw cut notch. Nonaxisymmetric waves via partial loading (not encircling) were
considered, but tests were conducted where a maximum value occurs at the
discontinuity with respect to the circumferential profile around the pipe. Whether
axisymmetric loading or nonaxisymmetric loading were used, the basic principle is the
same. For these tests, however, nonaxisymmetric modes were used. To know more
about nonaxisymmetric waves in pipe, see Li and Rose (2001) for details. For the 310
kHz lamb wave probe selected, see Figure 3. A 6 dB drop in amplitude occurs as a
result of water loading. Figures are on a same scale basis. Frequency tuning could
improve the result. Amplitude will in general, however, be a little smaller because of the
source influence of the finite sized transducer used in the experiment. This leads to a
phase velocity spectrum which excites more points on the phase velocity dispersion
curve than just the intersection point of the dilatational wave velocity and the symmetric
modes. See Rose (1999) for more details.

Figure 3 - Lamb waves in a dry and water loaded pipe (a variable angle beam
transducer was used for the test): (a) schematic; (b) dry pipe; (c) water loaded pipe.

On the other hand, for a torsional mode, virtually identical results are obtained for a dry
and a water loaded pipe (Figure 4). By choosing parameters of the exciting source such
as frequency, incident angle or circumferential angle, it is possible to detect
discontinuities with limited access to the structural surface and cross sectional area
even in a water loaded pipe.

Figure 4 - Torsional waves in a dry and water loaded pipe (a shear horizontal
electromagnetic acoustic transducer was used for the test): (a) schematic; (b) dry pipe;
(c) water loaded pipe.

Future Work
The idea presented here on water loading was also the basis of the development of a
wing ice detection system for aircraft (Hongerholt et al., 2002). By controlling the mode
and frequency of the guided waves in a structure via in plane or out of plane
displacement, it becomes possible to determine water, glycol or ice presence on the
wing of an aircraft. For example, guided waves with a dominant in plane displacement
on the surface will leak into ice but not into water.