Delamination Localization in Sandwich Skin Using Lamb Waves by Finite Element Method

In this work we model by finite element method (FEM) the Lamb waves’ propagation and their interactions with symmetric and asymmetric delamination in sandwich skin. The simulations were carried out using ABAQUS CAE by exciting the fundamental A0 Lamb mode in the frequency 300 kHz. The delamination was then estimated by analysing the signal picked up at two sensors using two technics: Two-Dimensional Fast Fourier Transform (2D-FFT) to identify the propagating and converted modes, and wavelet transform (WT) to measure the arrival times. The results showed that the mode A0 is sensible to symmetric and asymmetric delamination. Besides, based on signal changes with the delamination edges, a localization method is proposed to estimate the position and the length of the delamination. In the last section an experimental FEM verification is provided to validate the proposed method.