Ultrasonic Evaluation of Interfacial Stiffness for Nonlinear Contact Surfaces

This paper proposes an ultrasonic measurement method for measurement of linear interfacial stiffness of contacting surface between two steel plates subjected to nominal compression pressures. Interfacial stiffness was evaluated by using shear waves reflected at contact interface of two identical solid plates. Three consecutive reflection waves from solid-solid surface are captured by pulse-echo method to evaluate the state of contact interface. A non-dimensional parameter defined as the ratio of their peak-to-peak amplitudes are formulated and used to calculate the quantitative stiffness of interface. Mathematical model for 1-D wave propagation across interfaces is developed to formulate the reflection and transmission waves across the interface and to determine the interfacial stiffness. Two identical plates are fabricated and assembled to form contacting surface and to measure interfacial stiffness at different states of contact pressure by means of bolt fastening. It is found from experiment that the amplitude of interfacial stiffness is dependent on the pressure and successfully determined by employing pulse-echo ultrasonic method without measuring through-transmission waves.