Recent Ultrasonic Guided Wave Inspection Development Efforts

The recognition of such natural wave guides as plates, rods, hollow cylinders, multi-layer structures or simply an interface between two materials combined with an increased understanding of the physics and wave mechanics of guided wave propagation has led to a significant increase in the number of guided wave inspection applications being developed each year. Of primary attention Is the ability to inspect partially hidden structures, hard to access areas, and teated or insulated structures. An introduction to some physical consideration of guided waves followed by some sample problem descriptions in pipe, ice detection, fouling detection in the foods industry, aircraft, tar coated structures and acoustic microscopy is presented in this paper. A sample problem in Boundary Element Modeling is also presented to illustrate the move in guided wave analysis beyond detection and location analysis to quantification.