A Modied Time Reversal Method for Lamb

Wave-based Diagnostics of Damage Severity

Ryan Watkins
1
and Ratneshwar Jha
2,
1,2
Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Clarkson University
Potsdam, NY 13699, USA
ABSTRACT: Baseline-free diagnostics of damage severity using a Lamb
wave-based time reversal method are investigated. Due to the complex transducer
array necessary for time reversal diagnostics of a structure, a modied time rever-
sal method is developed. Theoretical analysis of Lamb wave propagation, actuated
by piezoelectric transducers, and experimental comparison with the original time
reversal method are used as a basis for validation of the modied time reversal
method. Experimental applications of the modied time reversal method are then
used in analysis of damage severity classication. Increasing levels of damage are
simulated by incrementally impacting a composite plate with a steel ball. A trans-
ducer array consisting of piezoelectric discs is used to send and receive A
0
Lamb
waves. The modied time reversal method is conducted for each actuator-sensor
pair and a damage index is computed. Results show magnitude of the damage
index to be directly correlated to the severity of damage within the signal path.
Key Words: time reversal, damage severity, Lamb wave
INTRODUCTION
Due to the complex cyclic and discrete loading experienced while in service, regular inspection
and maintenance of aircraft is necessary to verify and maintain overall structural safety. In
some cases, parts must be replaced without regard to condition due to the high stress or
high fatigue experienced during operation. Alternatively, damages may develop to a critical
level between inspection cycles leading to catastrophic failure. It is estimated that 20% of
an aircrafts lifetime costs go into inspection and maintenance (Kessler, 2002). The ability
to diagnose the structural integrity of an aircraft has the promise to change the current
inspection cycles into condition based maintenance and increase the use and safety of
aircraft structures.
In recent years, the use of composites has increased signicantly in aerospace vehicles.
The Airbus A380 is composed of approximately 25% composites and it is estimated that
Boeings 787 will contain 50% structural composites. Due to their high specic stiness,
composites result in lighter aircraft and are slowly replacing traditional aluminum parts.
Along with weight reduction, composites are also corrosion resistant, have improved fatigue
life and can be fabricated into more form tting designs than traditional materials. However,
the laminated makeup of composites allows for possible delaminations and other internal
aws which severely decrease the materials performance. Barely visible impact damage in
composites is a particular concern with respect to maintenance and reliability. The idea of
Integrated Structural Health Monitoring (ISHM), wherein sensors/actuators are integrated
within the structure itself, has therefore become of increasing interest. The goal of ISHM is to
determine presence, location, type, and severity of damages within a structure. ISHM would
decrease the amount of time and eort necessary to inspect a structure and would allow for
real-time damage diagnosis on the ground and during ight.
The use of Lamb wave based structural health monitoring has shown promise in published
research (Boller, 2000; Kessler, 2002; Kaczmarek, 2003; Toyama et al., 2003; Tua, 2004;

Author to whom correspondence should be addresses. E-mail: rjha@clarkson.edu

Submitted to Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures
Lestari and Qiao, 2005; Banerjee et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2007; Raghavan and Cesnik, 2007).
Lamb waves are of particular interest due to the similarity between their wavelength and
the thickness of composite structures generally used and their ability to travel far distances.
These two features allow for detection of not only supercial but internal aws and the ability
to examine large areas. Unfortunately, it is dicult to analyze measured responses due to
the multimodal and dispersive characteristics of Lamb waves propagation. Signal processing
and dispersion curves have typically been used to help the damage detection process and
understand the complex Lamb waves. The use of a time reversal method is a new approach
developed to mitigate Lamb wave dispersion eects and increase the applicability of Lamb
waves for ISHM.
Applications of the time reversal method in damage evaluation are relatively new. Initial
applications for the time reversal method were aimed at increasing Lamb wave resolution by
using time reversal mirrors. In this process, a Lamb wave pulse is emitted at a target and
the reected signal is recorded by an array of transducers, or time reversal mirrors. The
reected section of the received signal is reversed in time and reemitted toward the target.
By repeating this procedure, dispersion and unknown material deformation is compensated
for by focusing the signal. Applications using this pulse-echo technique were also able to
detect aws in inspected areas (Ing and Fink, 1998). Later work further enhanced the time
reversal method by using a pitch-catch method (Sohn et al., 2004). In this process, a tone
burst signal is actuated from one transducer and received by another. The received signal
is then reversed in time and re-emitted to the original transducer where the signal is again
received and reversed in time. Based on the assumption of linear reciprocity within a healthy
structure, the signal due to the time reversal process and the original signal compare exactly.
However, for nonlinearities introduced into the system (damage), the linear reciprocity of the
system breaks down and the irregularities between the two signals indicate the presence of
damage. Unlike most other health monitoring techniques, this time reversal process introduces
a baseline free method for damage detection. Validation of this technique was conducted by
Rose and Wang (2004), Butenas and Kazys (2006), and Giurgiutiu (2008) in which analytical
(classical and Mindlin plate theory), numerical (FEM) and experimental testing were applied.
The majority of recent work has been conducted by Sohn and Park applying the time reversal
method to determine presence and location of damage. Improvement to the damage detection
algorithm was made by rst incorporating extreme value analysis (Sohn et al., 2004), and later
enhanced by adding consecutive outlier analysis to decrease the possibility of false positive
damage alerts . An enhanced time reversal method, using wavelet analysis, was developed to
make the time reversal process autonomous and increase the resolution of the process (Park et
al., 2007). Eects of temperature on the time reversal process have also be briey examined
(Sohn et al., 2004).
This paper presents a modied time reversal method (MTRM) and evaluation of damage
severity within a structure. Development of the MTRM is used as a means to decrease
the hardware requirements of structural diagnostics. Theoretical analysis of Lamb wave
propagation, actuated by piezoelectric transducers, and experimental comparison with the
original time reversal method are used as a basis for validation of the modied time reversal
method. Experimental applications of the modied time reversal method are then used in
analysis of damage severity classication. A composite plate containing impact damage is
experimentally investigated by integrating a piezoelectric transducer array onto the plate
such that each transducer can be used as both an actuator and a sensor. Increasing levels
of damage are simulated by incrementally impacting a composite plate with a steel ball. In
2
diagnosing the health state of the plate, a damage index was used to quantitatively classify
the dierences between the originally actuated signal and the nal signal due to the modied
time reversal process. Magnitude of the damage index was used as basis for damage severity
evaluation.
LAMB WAVES
Discovered by Horace Lamb in 1917 and rst implemented as a means for damage detection
by Worlton in 1960, Lamb waves result from the superposition of guided longitudinal and
transverse (shear) waves. Lamb waves travel in thin plates with unconstrained boundaries
and have the capability of traveling long distances with little attenuation. Due to their in-
plane motion, Lamb waves can be used as a means to detect both supercial and internal aws
of a structure. Local stiness changes, cracks and delamination (for composite structures)
cause reection, dispersion, attenuation and mode shape change. These changes in wave
characteristics can be used to diagnose the corresponding structural defects.
2h
Symmetric
2h
Antisymmetric
Figure 1: Lamb wave mode shapes
As shown in Figure 1, Lamb waves exist in two mode shapes: symmetric and antisym-
metric. Obtained from the three dimensional elasticity equations, the Lamb wave equation
for a plate is dened by (Xu and Giurgiutiu, 2007)
tan(h)
tan(h)
=
_
4
2

(
2

2
)
2
_
1
(1)
where the positive exponential relates to symmetric waves, the negative exponential relates
to antisymmetric waves,

2
=

2
c
2
l

2
,
2
=

2
c
2
t

2
, =

c
p
and , c
l
, c
t
, c
p
and h are the wave angular frequency, longitudinal velocity, transverse velocity,
phase velocity, and plate half thickness, respectively. For isotropic materials,
c
2
l
=
+ 2

and c
2
t
=

where is the material density and and are Lame constants.

Dispersion Curves
The Eigenvalue solutions to Equation (1) (
S
0
,
S
1
,
S
2
... and
A
0
,
A
1
,
A
2
...) exhibit the
multimodal nature of Lamb waves. Further more, it can be shown that phase velocity, and
corresponding group velocity as dened by
c
g
=
d
d
, (2)
3
are dependent on frequency, making Lamb waves highly dispersive. Development of disper-
sion curves, which map modal phase/group velocities with respect to propagation frequency,
provide an important tool in examining the propagation characteristics of Lamb waves. The
quantitative dispersive characteristics of symmetric and antisymmetric Lamb waves are de-
termined by solving Equation (1) for c
p
() and evaluating Equation (2) for c
g
(). Due to
the dependency of longitudinal and transverse wave velocity on the properties of the medium,
dispersive characteristics vary with material properties and geometry. The dispersive char-
acteristics of the quasi-isotropic composite plates used in our experiments (carbon-epoxy,
AS4/3501-6, [0/90]
2s
) are shown in Figure 2.
(a) (b)
Figure 2: Analytical dispersion curves for AS4/3501-6 [0/90]
2s
: (a) phase velocity and (b)
group velocity
Actuation
Due to the highly dispersive nature of Lamb waves, mode tuning has been used as a means
to analyze the inuence of input excitation on the modal characteristics of the resultant wave
propagation. In particular, modeling of the interaction between surface mounted piezoelectric
(PZT) transducers and isotropic plates has been used to analyze the propagation of straight-
crested and circular-crested waves (Giurgiutiu, 2005 and Raghavan and Cesnik, 2004). For
an ideally bonded PZT disc transducer, the shear stress in the bonding layer is represented
by the pin force model
(r) =
0
(r a)e
it
, (3)
where a is the radius of the PZT transducer,
0
is the pin force at the ends of the PZT
transducer, r is the position along the transducer and is the angular frequency of the
actuator. The resultant surface displacement wave solution is found to be (Raghavan and
Cesnik, 2004)
u
r
(r, t) = i

0
a

e
it
_
_

S
J
1
(
S
a)
N
S
(
S
)
D

S
(
S
)
H
(2)
1
(
S
r) +

A
J
1
(
A
a)
N
A
(
A
)
D

A
(
A
)
H
(2)
1
(
A
r)
_
_
(4)
4
where
D
S
= (
2

2
)
2
cos(h) sin(h) + 4
2
sin(h) cos(h)
D
A
= (
2

2
)
2
sin(h) cos(h) + 4
2
cos(h) sin(h)
N
S
= (
2
+
2
) cos(h) cos(h)
N
A
= (
2
+
2
) sin(h) sin(h)
and
0
, a, r, J
1
(.) and H
(2)
1
(.) are the maximum shear stress at the end of the actuator, the
actuator diameter, radial distance from the actuator, the rst order Bessel function of the
rst kind and the rst order Hankel function of the second kind, respectively. Expanding
upon the displacement results as found by Raghavan and Cesnik, the corresponding surface
strain wave solution is obtained from

r
(r, t) =
u
r
(r, t)
r
= i

0
a

e
it
_
_

S
J
1
(
S
a)
N
S
(
S
)
D

S
(
S
)
H
(2)
1
(
S
r)
r
+

A
J
1
(
A
a)
N
A
(
A
)
D

A
(
A
)
H
(2)
1
(
A
r)
r
_
_
. (5)
Applying the derivative for a rst order Hankel function of the second kind as dened by
H
(2)
1
(r)
r
=
1
2

_
H
(2)
0
(r) H
(2)
2
(r)
_
, (6)
the closed form surface strain wave solution for disc actuators is

r
(r, t) = i

0
a
2
e
it
_
_

S
J
1
(
S
a)
N
S
(
S
)
D

S
(
S
)
_
H
(2)
0
(
S
r) H
(2)
2
(
S
r)
_
+

A
J
1
(
A
a)
N
A
(
A
)
D

A
(
A
)
_
H
(2)
0
(
A
r) H
(2)
2
(
A
r)
_
_
_
. (7)
Based on the displacement and strain relations dened by Equations (4) and (7), re-
spectively, the modal eects of actuation frequency are investigated. Normalizing the dis-
placement and strain with respect to their peak values, the mode tuning for the composite
plate/transducers used in the following experiments (carbon-epoxy, AS4/3501-6, [0/90]
2s
and
10mm actuators) with respect to A
0
and S
0
Lamb waves are shown in Figure 3. Such that
the actuation frequency is tuned properly, a single mode excitation can be simulated (as is
further discussed later in the paper).
TIME REVERSAL METHOD
Current structural health monitoring techniques are often based on the comparison of current
structural responses with a baseline healthy response case. Variations from the baseline case
alerts the presence of damage. Unfortunately, operational and environmental conditions cause
variations in the healthy response and, therefore, it is generally necessary to have baseline
5
(a) (b)
Figure 3: Theoretical mode tuning for 1mm thick AS4/3501-6 [0/90]
2s
: (a) normalized dis-
placement and (b) normalized strain
data for all possible operational and environmental conditions. For most structures, there
exists a complex array of possible functional conditions, making it necessary to perform front-
end data mining for all of the structural response characteristics. Furthermore, the necessary
data storage increases the cost/decreases the eciency of these diagnostic techniques. The
concept of using a Time Reversal Methods (TRM) has recently been proposed as a baseline-
free diagnostics technique in attempts to address these problems. Currently, the TRM has
been successfully implemented to detect the presence and location of damage and has the
potential to determine extent and type of damage.
To implement the TRM method for damage diagnosis, a transducer array is setup and
used in a pitch-catch arrangement (that is, a signal is actuated from one transducer and
recorded at another). Each transducer must work both as a sensor and actuator, so typically
piezoelectric (PZT) transducers are used. The time reversal process is as follows (and shown
in Figure 4):
1. A Lamb wave tone burst is sent from transducer A and recorded at transducer B
2. The received signal at B is reversed in time [i.e., V
B
(t) V
B
(t)]
3. The time reversed signal is sent from B back to A where it is recorded
4. The received signal at A is time reversed and compared to the original signal actuated
Since the TRM is based on the linear reciprocity of the system, for a linear elastic structure,
reemission of the time reversed signal from B focuses the waves such that the signal received at
A is qualitatively identical to the original signal emitted. When nonlinearities are introduced
into the signal path, the linear reciprocity of the system breaks down and the time reversal
fails. In application to damage diagnostics, dierences between the original signal and the
nal signal signify the existence of damage within the signal path.
Theoretically, the TRM for plate diagnostics was rst validated by Wang (2003) and
Park (2007) for low frequency A
0
Lamb waves (actuated by disc transducers) and based on
Mindlin plate theory. Although, Mindlin plate theory improves upon classical plate theory
by incorporating shear deformation, it is still a simplied version of the three dimensional
elasticity equations for a plate and only approximates the propagation of low frequency A
0
6
Lamb waves. An enhanced investigation of the TRM was conducted by Xu and Giurgiutiu
(2007) using the exact solutions to the three dimensional elastic equations, resulting in an
exact validation of A
0
and S
0
Lamb waves (actuated by rectangular transducers) in TRM
applications.
B
A
1) Actuate signal
2) Read signal
3) Time reverse
5) Read signal
4) Actuate signal
6) Compare signals
Figure 4: Time reversal processes
Modied Time Reversal
In application, the time reversal method needs a complex actuator/sensor array. Although
PZT transducers alleviate some of the problems associated with actuation and sensing at the
same position, other complexities still exist. In particular, the hardware (power amplier,
data acquisition) necessary to support both actuation and sensing at all sensor locations is
quite high. Therefore, a Modied Time Reversal Method (MTRM) is developed.
The MTRM is as shown in Figure 5. Step by step, the procedure is as follows (where the
modied steps are denoted in bold font):
1. A Lamb wave tone burst is sent from transducer A and recorded at transducer B
2. The received signal at B is reversed in time [i.e., V
B
(t) V
B
(t)]
3. The time reversed signal is sent from A to B where it is recorded
4. The received signal at B is time reversed and compared to the original signal
actuated
Although the MTRM is similar to the original TRM, only one actuator is necessary for the
process. Over a large structure, instead of actuating and sensing between every transducer,
only a few actuators are necessary within a grid of sensors.
The MTRM can be validated by analyzing the process in Fourier space. For the trans-
ducer arrangement in Figure 5, the signal received at B due to an input signal at A can be
represented by

V
1
() =

I()G(), (8)
7
B
A
2) Read signal
3) Time reverse
1) Actuate signal
4) Actuate signal
5) Read signal
6) Compare signals
Figure 5: Modied time reversal process
where denotes the Fourier transform of the function, I is the input signal at A, and G is
the structural transfer function (and is dened in a later section). In Fourier space, the time
reversal of the signal at B is dened by

V ()
TR

(), (9)
where

denotes the complex conjugate of the function. Therefore, the time reversed signal
at B (step 2) can be represented by

V
tr
1
() =

I

()G

(). (10)
In the modied time reversal method proposed here, the time reversed signal is actuated from
A to B (step 3), resulting in

V
2
() =

V
tr
1
()G() =

I

()G

()G(). (11)
Time reversing the nal signal

V
2
(step 4),

V
tr
2
() =

I()G

()G() =

I |G()|
2
(12)
and transforming the signal back into the time domain,
V
tr
2
(t) =
1
2
_

I() |G()|
2
e
it
d. (13)
Such that |G()|
2
is independent of (as discussed later), the signal at the end of the time
reversal process is directly related to the originally actuated signal as found by
V
tr
2
(t) = CI(t), (14)
where C = |G()|
2
/2. This is the same result as found for the original TRM (Park et. al.,
2004 and Xu and Giurgiutiu, 2007).
8
Structural transfer function
The structural transfer function for Lamb wave propagation in a plate, as dened in Equation
(8), is rewritten as
G() =

V ()

I()
. (15)
Based on the coupling between a PZT sensor (with thickness t
a
and Youngs Modulus E
a
)
ideally bonded to a plate (with thickness t
p
and Youngs Modulus E
p
), the electric potential
experienced by the sensor is dened by
V (t) =
( +)t
a
d
13

(t) (16)
where is the plate surface strain at the center of the sensor, is related to the plate
displacement, strain and stress eld (for low frequencies = 4), d
13
is the piezoelectric
coupling coecient relating electric potential across the transducer thickness to in-plane radial
strain, and = E
p
t
p
/E
a
t
a
. For K t
a
( +)/d
13
,
G() =
F {K(t)}

I()
. (17)
For a unit input actuation I(t) = e
i
0
t
, the resulting strain response at a distance r from
the actuator is as found by Equation (5). Such that only the A
0
+ S
0
modes are excited,
substitution of Equation (5) into Equation (17) results in
G() =
_
S()
H
(2)
1
(
S
r)
r
+A()
H
(2)
1
(
A
r)
r
_
F
_
e
i
0
t
_
F {e
i
0
t
}
(18)
and reduces to
G() = S(
S
0
)
H
(2)
1
(
S
0
r)
r
+A(
A
0
)
H
(2)
1
(
A
0
r)
r
(19)
where
S() = iK

0
a

J
1
(a)
N
S
()
D

S
()
A() = iK

0
a

J
1
(a)
N
A
()
D

A
()
.
Such that r >> 3/4 (ADD FIGURE TO SHOW RELATION?), the rst order Hankel
function can be approximated to be
H
(2)
1
(r)
_
2
r
e
i(r
3
4
)
, (20)
resulting in the approximate derivative
H
(2)
1
(r)
r
T()e
ir
(21)
9
where
T() =
_
2
r
e
i
3
4
_
1
2r
+i
_
. (22)
The time reversal transfer function is therefore approximated to be
|G()|
2

T(
S
)S(
S
)

2
+

T(
A
)A(
A
)

2
+S(
S
)A

(
A
)T(
S
)T

(
A
)e
ir(
A

S
)
+
S

(
S
)A(
A
)T

(
S
)T(
A
)e
ir(
S

A
)
. (23)
Examining the eects of the time reversal transfer function on Equation (13) it can be
noted that, such that the original signal actuated is a single mode (A
0
or S
0
) and a single
frequency (i.e., G becomes independent of driving frequency), then the results of Equation
(14) are valid. However, for a multiple mode excitation S
0
+A
0
, the exponentials in the last
two terms in Equation (23) cause side-bands, symmetric about a central wave, to appear as
dened by the time shifting principle of the Fourier transform. Therefore, only single mode
excitations for use in the time reversal method are valid. A single mode excitation is typically
accomplished by tuning the excitation frequency such that one mode is dominate over the
other. Referring to Figure 3(b), it can be seen that the A
0
mode is dominant for frequencies
around 20kHz, 190kHz etc and that S
0
is dominant for frequencies around 130kHz, 310kHz
etc. In the following experiments, a 20kHz signal was used to simulate an A
0
single mode
excitation.
Since it is not possible to excite a single frequency, a narrow-band tone burst is typically
used to simulate a single frequency excitation. A tone burst consists of a windowed sine wave
of nite energy. There are various forms of windowing functions that are used to smooth the
signal such as, Gaussian, Hamming or Hanning windows. Typically, a Hanning window is
used and is dened by
h(t) =
_
0.5[1 cos(2t/)] for t [0, ]
0 otherwise
(24)
where is the period of the window. The resulting tone burst is represented by
x(t) = h(t) sin(2ft) (25)
where f is the frequency of the signal in Hz (Xu and Giurgiutiu, 2007). The respective
bandwidth of a Hanning windowed tone burst is as dened by
b =
4f
n
(26)
where n is the number of cycles in the tone burst (n = /f) (Raghavan and Cesnik, 2004).
Since the frequency of the actuation signal is chosen such that one mode is dominant, the
bandwidth of the signal is decreased by increasing the number of cycles in the tone burst.
However, although an extremely large number of cycles results in a very narrow bandwidth,
the corresponding signal can become exceedingly complex (especially for short signal paths).
Therefore, a 9.5 count tone burst was used in experiments such that the bandwidth was
narrow enough, but the resulting signals were not too complex.
10
Damage Index
The detection of damage using the time reversal method is accomplished by comparing the
input actuation signal with the signal due to the time reversal process. Deviations from the
actuated signal signify the existence of damage which is typically quantied using a Damage
Index (DI). However, dierent methods of determining and interpreting these DI values have
been used by researchers.
Sohn and Park (2003, 2007) used a damage index dened by
DI
SP
= 1

_
_
_
t
1
t
0
I(t)V (t)dt
_
2
_
t
1
t
0
I(t)
2
dt
_
t
1
t
0
V (t)
2
dt
(27)
where I(t) is the original signal, V (t) is the signal due to the time reversal process, and t
0
and t
1
dene the time interval over which the signals are compared. Based on this denition,
DI
SP
= 0 represents identical signals whereas DI
SP
= 1 represents very dissimilar signals.
Furthermore, it can be shown that for I(t) = V (t), DI
SP
= 0 for all . Note however that
is a generic constant which does not relate to C. Therefore, this damage index focuses on
shifts in frequency and changes in the overall shape of the time reversed signal but does not
capture dierences in signal amplitudes.
Contrary to Sohn and Parks quantication of dissimilarity, Giurgiutiu (2008) uses sim-
ilarity based on an L
2
error norm. So as to have the same basis as DI
SP
, we redene the
resulting damage index to be
DI
G
= VI
2
=

N
[V I]
2

N
(I)
2
(28)
where V and I are discrete data sets of the time reversed signal and the actuated signal,
respectively, and N is the number of data points. Since the amplitude of the two signals V
and I are typically of dierent orders of magnitude as dened by C in Equation (14), each
signal is normalized with respect to itself before determining the similarity. This damage
index also only focuses on shifts in frequency and changes in the overall shape of the time
reversed signal and not dierences in signal amplitudes since the amplitude information of
each signal is lost in the normalization process.
EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
An experimental set-up using a quasi isotropic carbon/epoxy plate with surface bonded piezo-
electric disc sensors was used to implement the MTR method. An eight ply carbon/epoxy
plate, in a symmetric [0/90]
2s
layup, was fabricated using AS4/35016 pre-preg and a vacuum
bag/oven curing technique. A piezoelectric (PZT) actuator/sensor network was integrated
onto the composite plate as shown in Figure 6(a) where each transducer was axed using
epoxy. The transducers have dimensions of 10mm diameter and 0.5mm thickness and the
plate was tested in a cantilever set-up. Two impact damages were introduced into the plate
as denoted by A and B in Figure 6(a). Damage A was constant for all tests where as the
damage at B was incrementally increased. For a controlled increase damage at B, a 175 g
11
steel ball was dropped down a tube, onto B, from a xed height of 4 ft. Based on the mode
tuning curve in Figure 3, a single frequency excitation of an A
0
Lamb wave was simulated
using a 20kHz, 9.5 cycle tone burst with amplitude of 100V . Do to a faulty sensor at location
4, only the signal paths relating to transducers 1, 2 and 3 were used in the analysis.
The experimental setup is as shown in Figure 6(b). A National Instruments PCI 6229
data acquisition card and a BNC-2110 board were used to actuate and record Lamb waves.
A QuickPack R power amplier, made by Active Control Experts, was used to amplify the
actuation signal and 3 Dual Mode Charge Ampliers, made by Kistler, were used to amplify
the signals read from the PZT sensors.
1
2 3
4
A B 9.5
5
(a)
Sensor Steel ball
Cantilevered plate
(b)
Figure 6: Experimental setup: (a) transducer arrangement and (b) experimental test equip-
ment
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Modied time reversal
To experimentally validate the use of the modied time reversal, a comparison between the
results generated by the TRM and MTRM was made. For each signal path, both the TRM
and MTRM were conducted and the results were compared. Figure 7 shows the results for
signal path 1-2. Qualitatively, it can be noted that the two signals are close to identical.
Quantitatively, the similarity between the two signals was determined as dened by
Similarity = 1 V
trm
V
mtrm

2
(29)
where V
trm
and V
mtrm
are the time reversal responses of the TRM and MTRM, respectively.
Results are as shown in Table 1. For all three signal paths, the results from the MTRM method
are very similar to the results as found by the TR method. For those areas that are dissimilar,
it is mostly due to the noise in the signal and could be mitigated using basic denoising
techniques. Finally, it can be shown that the TRM/MTRM results are not dependent on
initial actuator (i.e., the results are the same for initial actuation at 1 for path 1-2 as the results
for initial actuation at 2 for path 1-2). This realization cuts down on the plate diagnostic
procedure from (N 1)(N 2) TR/MTR evaluations down to N(N 1)/2 TRM/MTRM
procedures, where N is the number of transducers.
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Figure 7: TR/MTR comparison
Table 1: Comparison between TR and MTR
Path Similarity(%)
1-2 89.18
1-3 92.18
2-3 98.42
Damage severity
A set of test cases, with incremental damage levels, were examined to determine the applica-
bility of the MTR for evaluation of damage severity. For each test case, the MTRM process
for all signal path permutations was performed. The test cases analyzed consisted of a base-
line case and three damage levels (DL) referenced to as DL
base
, DL
1
, DL
2
and DL
3
and
corresponding to 0, 4, 8 and 12 impacts at B, respectively . In evaluation of the results, both
damage indexes (Eqns. 27 and 28) were used.
Figure 8: Baseline DI calculations
With respect to the baseline results, as shown in Figure 8, path 1-3 exhibits the highest
13
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 9: Damage index evaluation and comparison for increasing damage at B: (a) path
1-2, (b) path 1-3 and (c) path 2-3
DI values for both damage indexing systems. Due to the initial damage at A and healthy
conditions for paths 1-2 and 2-3, this is as expected. In analyzing the eects of increased
damage on the DI values, the DI results at each damage level were compared to the baseline
results (by DI
i
/DI
base
where i references the damage level case) and are as shown in Figure 9.
For both damage indexing systems, it is shown that the damage index for path 1-2 increases
incrementally as the damage level is increased at B whereas the damage indices for paths 1-3
and 2-3 remain close to the baseline values. It is important to note that baseline data is not
necessary to determine the presence of damage but it rather used as reference to show the
eects of damage on the indexing methods.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented a time reversal method to detect the presence of damage within a
thin composite plate. A cross-ply carbon-epoxy composite plate with 8 layers was fabricated
and four PZT actuator/sensor were bonded to the plate surface. A modied time reversal
method was developed to enhance the applicability of the process by decreasing the necessary
hardware to monitor the health of the structure. Two damage indexing systems, as developed
by Park et al (2003 and 2007) and Giurgiutiu (2008), were used to evaluate the eects of
severity of damage. It was found that both damage indexing evaluations increased as severity
of damage increased, verifying the ability of the modied time reversal method to determine
14
not only the presence of damage, but also the severity.
This evaluation of damage severity is still in the preliminary stages of research and needs
further validation. Firstly, a larger array of damage types is necessary to investigate the
applicability of using the time reversal method for all damage cases. In particular, composite
delaminations are of interest in that they can not be seen by the naked eye. Furthermore,
a more in depth correlation between the actual severity of damage within the plate and the
indicated damage severity as indicated by the time reversal method is necessary. In this
study, there was little know about the actual extent of damage within the plate although
it was assumed that each impact increased the damage at the impact location. Use of
currently accepted non destructive testing methods, such as use of a C-scan or x-ray imaging,
to determine that actual state of damage within the structure would allow for a better com-
parison of the accuracy of the the time reversals ability to detect damage severity. Finally, it
also found that each indexing system exhibited dierent characteristics as the damage level
was increased. Further study of the damage indexing systems and their ability to identify
increases in damage severity is necessary to determine which method is best to be used in the
time reversal method.
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