Fabrication and test of a piezo-composite transducer for inspection of plate structures in contact with fluid using Lamb waves

In this paper, design, fabrication and test of piezoelectric fiber composite transducer for Lamb wave inspection of fluid loaded plates has been investigated. First, dispersion and wave structure analysis has been performed in order to select proper mode and frequency for fluid loaded plate inspection. The S1 mode with zero out of plane displacement in free boundaries of a plate with predefined thickness has been extracted, afterward a piezoelectric fiber composite comb transducer has been designed and fabricated. Having manufactured the transducer, necessary tests has been done in order to prove that the transducer generated Lamb mode at selected mode and frequency is not affected by the fluid loading, in both pitch-catch and pulse-echo techniques. The tests has been done successfully and then crack detection in fluid loaded plate by means of fabricated transducers has been examined again in both pulse-echo and pitch-catch arrangements. It has been shown that in pitch-catch test, the presence of a predefined crack leads to decrease in S1 mode related peak in receiver. Moreover, in pulse-echo test, due to the interference of crack reflected wave signal with the transducer resonance response, continues wavelet transform, as one of time-frequency signal processing methods, has been employed successfully for crack detection. Consequently, the fabricated signal has necessary efficiency for damage detection in fluid loaded plates using lamb waves.