Effect of beam diffraction on nonlinear Rayleigh surface wave measurement

This research investigates the effects of beam diffraction from a source of finite width on nonlinear Rayleigh wave propagation in an elastic half space. Previous work has shown that nonlinear ultrasonic Rayleigh waves can be used to evaluate material damage due to plastic deformation and fatigue. In this measurement, a relatively small wedge transducer is employed to launch Rayleigh surface waves in the specimen and the first and second harmonic amplitudes are measured in the far field as a function of propagation distance. In order to obtain a reliable set of measurement data, one needs to make numerous points in a wide range of distance, which can be impractical in many cases. This research investigates model is employed and the computation results are compared with experiment ones. This research will make measurements on 7075-T651 aluminum as a specimen, compensate the diffraction effects and then, will compare the feasibility of the method proposed in this research in the results of normalized second harmonic amplitude vs propagation distance.MSCommittee Chair: Laurence J. Jacobs; Committee Member: Jianmin Qu; Committee Member: Jin-Yeon Ki