Stress evaluation of tubular structures using torsional guided wave mixing

Abstract

This study aims at numerically and experimentally investigating torsional guided wave mixing with weak material nonlinearity under acoustoelastic effect in tubular structures. The acoustoelastic effect on single central frequency guided wave propagation in structures has been well-established. However, the acoustoelastic on guided wave mixing has not been fully explored. This study employs a three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model to simulate the effect of stress on guided wave mixing in tubular structures. The nonlinear strain energy function and theory of incremental deformation are implemented in the 3D FE model to simulate the guided wave mixing with weak material nonlinearity under acoustoelastic effect. Experiments are carried out to measure the nonlinear features, such as combinational harmonics and second harmonics in related to different levels of applied stresses. The experimental results are compared with the 3D FE simulation. The results show that the generation combinational harmonic at sum frequency provides valuable stress information for tubular structures, and also useful for damage diagnosis. The findings of this study provide physical insights into the effect of applied stresses on the combinational harmonic generation due to wave mixing. The results are important for applying the guided wave mixing for in-situ monitoring of structures, which are subjected to different levels of loadings under operational condition.