Study on Ultrasonic Guided Wave Propagation Characteristics and Damage Imaging for Composite Structures Under Variable Temperature Field

The Lamb-wave-based damage location method has been widely used for health monitoring of composite structures. However, it is easily interfered by external factors because its service environment is complex and changeable. To determine the influence of the temperature field on the propagation of Lamb waves in composite structures, in this study we first investigated the propagation characteristics of ultrasonic guided waves on glass fiber laminates under a temperature field using an infrared thermal imager. Subsequently, a corrected model was established using the extracted amplitude attenuation and phase delay errors. Consequently, a modified multiple signal classification(2D-MUSIC) algorithm-based damage imaging method is proposed for composite structures. The experimental results on glass fiber composite laminates show that the proposed method can effectively improve the resolution and accuracy of the original algorithm under a variable temperature field.