An Ultrasonic Technique for Sizing Surface Cracks

Rayleigh surface waves are proposed as a non-destructive method to find the depth of surface cracks. The paper describes how dynamic photoelasticity was used to develop an understanding of the subsurface interactions between R-waves and a narrow slot. A frequency analysis of the transmitted wave confirmed that the slot acts as a low pass filter for the high frequency Fourier components of the input wave. It is then shown that the high frequency cut-off in the spectrum of the transmitted wave from broadband ultrasonic surface pulse can be used to determine the depth of surface slots