Lamb wave tomography and its application in pipe erosion/corrosion monitoring

Abstract

Ultrasonic Lamb wave techniques are widely used in a number of NDE applications. To excite Lamb waves, mode conversion of bulk waves or photo acoustic excitation are often used. Both of these approaches suffer from the need for liquid couplant or ablation of materials to reach good signal to noise ratio. In this paper, we propose a novel technique that utilizes point source excitation and detection of Lamb waves through dry, elastic contacts to monitor velocity changes. We demonstrate the power of this approach in ultrasonic pipe erosion/corrosion monitoring and its potential application in aircraft skin defect imaging. We present results of measurements of plate thickness, and erosion/corrosion in a section of pipe that was removed from service, as well as imaging of defects in an aluminum thin plate.