The Effects of Stress on Second Harmonics in Plate-Like Structures

Abstract

Cumulative second harmonic of ultrasonic guided waves is considered to have great application potential in evaluating internal stress of structures. One difficulty with the application is the diversity and complexity of modal response to the stress change in waveguide. At present, there is a lack of relevant theoretical studies and experimental results to guide the applications. In this article, a method is proposed to characterize the amplitude change of cumulative second harmonic mode in a plate under stress through calculating the amplitude coefficient, which can be acquired based on mode shape analysis. The steel plate is taken as an example to demonstrate the analysis method. Experimental studies are presented with results consistent with the theoretical predictions. The results of this study indicate that the amplitudes of different cumulative second harmonic modes may increase or decrease monotonically with the change of stress. Therefore, when the phenomenon of modes mixing occurs in the waveguide, it is necessary to analyze and predict the amplitude of selected cumulative second harmonic mode with the change of stress in advance; otherwise, wrong results may be obtained. The method and conclusions proposed in this paper can also be applicable to waveguide of arbitrary cross-section and have universality.

Keywords

• plate
• nonlinear guided waves
• second harmonic
• stress
• amplitude coefficient
• semi-analytical finite element (SAFE)