Lamb Wave Interaction with Adhesively Bonded Stiffeners and Disbonds Using 3D Vibrometry

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 12
• Main Authors: Marks, Ryan, Clarke, Alastair, Featherston, Carol, Paget, Christophe, Pullin, Rhys
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-01-2016
• Subjects: Adhesive bonding; Adhesive joints; Air travel; Aircraft; Bond strength; Bonded joints; Composite materials; Crack initiation; Crack propagation; Drilling; Human error; Lamb waves; Lasers; non-destructive testing; Panels; Sensors; Stiffeners; structural health monitoring; Three dimensional; Ultrasonic testing; ultrasonics; vibrometry; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app6010012

There are many advantages to adhesively bonding stiffeners onto aircraft structures rather than using traditional mechanical fastening methods. However there is a lack of confidence of the structural integrity of adhesively bonded joints over time. Acousto-ultrasonic Lamb waves have shown great potential in structural health monitoring applications in both metallic and composite structures. This paper presents an experimental investigation of the use of acousto-ultrasonic Lamb waves for the monitoring of adhesively bonded joints in metallic structures using 3D scanning laser vibrometry. Two stiffened panels were manufactured, one with an intentional disbonded region. Lamb wave interaction with the healthy and disbonded stiffeners was investigated at three excitation frequencies. A windowed root-mean-squared technique was applied to quantify where Lamb wave energy was reflected, attenuated and transmitted across the structure enabling the size and shape of the defect to be visualised which was verified by traditional ultrasonic inspection techniques.