Experimental and Finite Element Study for Quantification of Crack in an

Aluminium Plate using Nonlinear Lamb Wave

Nitesh P. Yelve
a
, Mira Mitra
b
and Prasanna M. Mujumdar
c

Department of Aerospace Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400076, India
a
nitesh@aero.iitb.ac,
b
mira@aero.iitb.ac.in,
c
mujumdar@aero.iitb.ac.in
Keywords: Nonlinear Lamb wave, Breathing crack, Higher harmonics, Finite element method
Abstract. The present research focuses on detecting and quantifying a transverse crack present in an
aluminium plate, using nonlinear response of Lamb wave induced by contact nonlinearity at the
breathing crack. The nonlinear response of Lamb wave appears in the form of higher harmonics and
is seen in both experimental and Finite Element (FE) simulation studies. Time-frequency analysis is
carried out using Continuous Morlet Wavelet Transform (CMWT) for both experimental and
simulation results to show that the fundamental and higher harmonics follow the dispersion curves
of Lamb wave. The nonlinearity parameter is estimated from the frequency domain results. It is
found to be increasing with the increase in crack depth and its trend is similar in both the studies. In
summary, in this paper the experimental procedure using PW transducers and the simulation
procedure using FE are presented for exploring the nonlinear behaviour of Lamb wave for
quantifying the breathing crack.
Introduction
Structural components used in mechanical, civil, and aerospace applications are often subjected
to time varying load. In many cases such loading gives rise to fatigue cracks in the components
which ultimately undergo fatigue failure. Thus there is need for non-destructively detecting and
quantifying theses fatigue cracks so as to ensure structural safety. Ultrasonic testing using guided
waves, typically Lamb wave is a popular method as it offers benefits such as built-in transduction
and moderately large inspection ranges [1].
Lamb wave-based methods can be broadly classified into two groups. The first group involves
linear methods which are based on the principles of linear ultrasonics and relies on measuring
parameters like attenuation, transmission, and reflection coefficients [2] for detecting damage in a
material. However the frequency content of the input and output signal is the same [2]. These
methods are sensitive to gross defects or opens cracks where there is an effective barrier to
transmission, whereas it is less sensitive to small cracks or material degradation. The second group
encompasses nonlinear methods, which show change in the frequency content in response to the
nonlinearity in the material introduced by the defect itself. This change in the frequency content
appears in the form of higher harmonics, sub-harmonics, shift of resonance frequency, and mixed
frequency response [2]. These are more sensitive to small cracks, compared to the amplitude and
phase change involved in linear ultrasonic techniques. Also, existing literature [3] on damage
detection techniques using nonlinear ultrasonics suggest that nonlinear techniques are robust to
factors such as complicated geometry or moderate environmental variations like wind and
temperature. These capabilities make the nonlinear ultrasonics techniques attractive for field
applications. In the present study only higher harmonics generation is considered as a measure of
nonlinearity introduced by the damage.
There are basically two mechanisms by virtue of which damage introduces nonlinearity in the
material [2]. The first mechanism is nonlinear elasticity introduced in the material by the defect; for
example distribution of dislocations during fatigue damage progression, introduces nonlinear
elasticity in the material continuum. In the second mechanism faces of a crack interact with each

other as wave passes across it and induces local change in the stiffness giving rise to contact
nonlinearity. When wave reaches the breathing crack, the compressional part of the wave can
penetrate it, but its tensile part cannot penetrate. Thus, after passing across the crack, the wave gets
modified nonlinearly and gives rise to higher harmonics.
Existing literature [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] on the generation of second harmonic in Lamb wave
response mainly deals with the experimental studies where the nonlinearity which causes the second
harmonic response is a weak material nonlinearity arising from enhancement of microscopic defects
dispersed throughout the material due to fatigue, aging, and plastic deformation. Further as the wave
propagates, the second harmonic response is build up due to the cumulative resonance effect. This is
possible only in case of specific pairs of resonant Lamb modes at very high frequencies (in MHz
range) which have the same phase and same group velocities at the fundamental and second
harmonic frequencies. In contrast to this domain of research, the present work deals with stronger
nonlinearities arising from damage such as breathing crack, due to relatively larger stiffness changes
at the contact interfaces as the crack closes and opens during the wave proapagation across it. In this
case, the requirement of resonant Lamb wave modes, as stated above is not a necessary condition.
The strength of second harmonic is not due to cumulative resonance, but due to the strong contact
nonlinearity. This nonlinearity generates even more number of higher harmonics in Lamb wave
even at fairly low excitation fundamental frequencies in kHz range. Also, the literature lack in
showing up the work done with nonlinear Lamb wave resulting from contact nonlinearity, for
characterizing cracks in the material, both experimentally and using FE technique.
The present research focuses on detecting and quantifying a transverse crack present in an
aluminium plate. For this purpose nonlinear response of Lamb wave resulting from contact
nonlinearity at the breathing crack is used. The nonlinear response of Lamb wave appears in the
form of higher harmonics. Firstly, experiments are carried out on a thin aluminium plate having
transverse surface crack. Instead of wedge type transducers [4,6], Piezoelectric Wafer (PW)
transducers are used for actuating and sensing the Lamb wave. In comparison with wedge
transducers, PW transducers are portable, small in size, and cost effective, which make them useful
for in situ applications. Next, analysis of the nonlinear interaction of Lamb wave with a crack is
carried out using Finite Element (FE) simulation in ANSYS

. The FE modeling of Lamb wave

propagation across a crack, involves intricacy in modeling the breathing crack. The breathing crack
must open and close as wave passes through it so as to introduce contact nonlinearity in the wave
propagation. To ensure the interaction of crack faces as wave passes across the crack, the crack
faces are assigned contact elements. Augmented Lagrangian (AL) algorithm is used for solving the
contact problem, as the AL algorithm offers advantages such as reduced ill-conditioning of
governing equations and fairly good agreement with the constraints while dealing with the finite
penalties [11]. The experiments and FE simulation show the presence of three higher harmonics
resulting from the nonlinear interaction of Lamb wave with the crack. Further, time-frequency
analysis is carried out using Continuous Morlet Wavelet Transform (CMWT) for both experimental
and simulation results to show that the fundamental and higher harmonics follow the dispersion
curves of Lamb wave [12]. Nonlinearity parameter is estimated from the frequency domain
results. It is found to be increasing with the increase in crack depth and its trend is similar in both
the studies. The paper is organized into three sections. The experimentation part is explained first.
The following section deals with the FE simulation, and the last section depicts the estimation of
nonlinearity parameter .
Experimental Study
In the experimental work, PW transducers are used to transmit and receive Lamb wave across a
transverse surface crack in an aluminium plate. The size of the PW transducers used here is 10 mm
7 mm 0.5 mm and material type is SP-5H. The grade of aluminium material used here is 5052-
H32 with modulus of elasticity 70.3 GPa, poissons ratio 0.33 and density 2680 kg/m
3
[13].

Objective here is to observe the effect of nonlinear interaction of Lamb wave with a transverse
breathing crack, and thereby quantify the crack. To achieve this, it is required to have plates with
different accurate crack depths. It is difficult to produce surface cracks of different controlled depths
in a thin plate even if an accelerated fatigue machine is used. Therefore, the test plates for
experimental work are constructed by bonding three pieces of aluminium plates together as shown
in Fig. 1. The method followed for having crack in the test plate is the same as that adopted by
Douka et al [14] for time-frequency analysis of the free vibration response of a beam with crack.
Plates 2 and 3 are bonded to plate 1 but not to each other so that the faces of plates 2 and 3 in
contact behave like faces of a breathing crack. Care is taken to not to have high compressive
stresses at the crack interfaces while fabricating the test plate. Araldite

epoxy adhesive is used for

bonding the plates. Curing is done at the room temperature for 48 hours while plates are clamped
together using C-clamps to ensure good bonding of plates. The plan form dimensions of the test
plate are 400 mm 200 mm. The thicknesses of the upper two plates in the test plate are same
whereas that of lower plate is different, so as to have cracks with different depths as shown in
Table 1.

Fig. 1 Experimental setup.
Table 1 Plate Configurations
Plate
configuration
number
Thickness of
plate 1
Thickness of
plates 2 and 3
Total plate
thickness
Crack depth as
percentage of
total plate
thickness
[mm] [mm] [mm] [%]
1 2 2 4 50
2 2 1.6 3.6 44
3 2 1 3 33
The experimental setup as shown in Fig. 1 consists of Tektronix AFG 3021B single channel
arbitrary function generator, NF BA4825 high speed bipolar amplifier, Tektronix TDS 1002B two
channel digital storage oscilloscope, and a computer having online connection with the
oscilloscope. The three test plates have different total thicknesses as shown in Table 1. This is
because of the constraint on the availability of individual plate thicknesses. However, generation of
Lamb wave with similar characteristics in all the three test plates requires a condition to be satisfied
that the frequency thickness product must be same in all the three cases. The experiments are carried
out at a range of low excitation frequencies (85 kHz to 400 kHz) and at all the frequencies higher
harmonics are observed as a result of contact nonlinearity. Three different frequencies, 255 kHz,
283.33 kHz, and 340 kHz are chosen for the experiments so as to have same frequency thickness
product, 1,020 kHz mm in all the three test plates as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Frequencies used in the experiments
Plate configuration
number
Total plate thickness Frequency Frequency thickness
product
[mm] [kHz] [kHz mm]
1 4 255 1,020
2 3.6 283.33 1,020
3 3 340 1,020
Excitation tone burst used is a 8.5 cycle sine wave windowed by Gaussian function. Gaussian
windowing function is used here because it produces a tone burst which has narrow frequency
bandwidth with less sidebands. The number of cycles considered for the tone burst is 8.5, because
for these many cycles, the Lamb wave modes are seen well separated, the frequency bandwidth is
less, and the half cycle in the tone burst brings the peak amplitude at the centre which helps in
calculating group velocity. The tone burst with 8.5 cycles and amplification of 300 Volt (peak to
peak) supplied to PW actuator is found to possess sufficient energy required for exciting higher
harmonics at a range of low frequencies mentioned above. The received Lamb wave signals at the
PW sensor are shown by the oscilloscope and are sent to computer for further offline signal
processing.
Experiments are carried out on the test plates with crack depths 33%, 44%, and 50% of plate
thickness respectively and also on a test plate without crack, i.e. having only two plates, upper and
lower, of same plan form dimensions, bonded together. The plate without crack is treated as an
undamaged test plate. The frequency spectra in case of undamaged test plate and a test plate with
the crack depth of 50% are shown in Fig. 2. Three higher harmonics at 510 kHz, 765 kHz, and
1,020 kHz can be seen in Fig. 2, whereas the test plate without crack does not show any higher
harmonic. This means that the adhesive bond between the upper and lower plates does not have any
contribution to the higher harmonics observed in the experiment. This also obviates the possibility
that any instrumentation nonlinearity may be a reason for the appearance of higher harmonics in the
response. Therefore it can be concluded that the higher harmonics observed are solely because of
nonlinear interaction of the wave with the breathing crack. Similar frequency domain results are
obtained in case of the plates with crack depths 33% and 44%.

Fig.1 Experimental results in frequency domain.
To further ensure that the frequency contents in the signal, picked up at the PW sensor are
corresponding to Lamb wave modes, a time-frequency analysis of the received signal is carried out
and the arrival times of particular frequencies are identified. Continuous Morlet Wavelet Transform
(CMWT) is used for this purpose with the central frequency parameter 10 to satisfy the
admissibility condition [15,16]. CMWT essentially shows the frequency contents of the response
signal, at their respective arrival times. Next, the dispersion curves of A
0
and S
0
modes of Lamb

wave, between the group velocity and the frequency for the known plate thickness, are obtained
analytically [12]. As the distance between actuator and sensor are known, the arrival times of the
Lamb wave modes are obtained from the group velocity and plotted against the frequency. Such a
dispersion plot is then overlapped on the wavelet plot using MATLAB

. These results are shown in

Fig. 3a for the test plate without crack, and in Fig. 3b for the test plate with crack depth of 50%. The
Morlet wavelet plot in Fig. 3a shows frequency 255 kHz, and in Fig. 3b shows frequencies 255 kHz
and 510 kHz, contained in the response signal. They all lie close to the dispersion curves. Thus,
from these two figures it can be said that, undamaged test plate shows only A
0
and S
0
modes of
Lamb wave at fundamental frequency in the response signal and no higher harmonics, whereas in
case of the test plate with 50% crack depth, the frequency 255 kHz corresponds to A
0
and S
0
modes
of Lamb wave, and the second harmonic 510 kHz corresponds to S
0
mode of Lamb wave. Third and
fourth harmonic frequencies are not visible in Fig. 3b as their amplitudes are feeble compared to the
fundamental frequency. Similar time-frequency results are obtained in case of the plates with crack
depths 33% and 44%.

(a) Plate without crack. (b) Plate with 50% crack depth.
Fig. 3 CMWT of the experimental output data.
Finite Element Simulation
The challenge faced in the FE simulation of Lamb wave propagation across the breathing crack,
in order to study their nonlinear interaction, is to model the crack using efficient contact modeling
which can closely approximate the physical contact of crack faces. ANSYS

is used here for FE

simulation. An aluminium plate (grade 5052-H32) with a breathing crack, and PW actuator and
sensor for transmitting and receiving Lamb wave, is modeled in the thickness plane with plane
strain approximation. This approximation essentially saves computational time without affecting the
trend of the results [17]. PLANE82 (8-node quadrilateral) elements are used in the plate region and
PW transducers are modeled using PLANE223 (8-node quadrilateral coupled-field) elements.
Selection of element size is crucial for FE simulation of wave propagation. The size of the elements
must be sufficiently small for there to be atleast 10 nodes per wavelength of the propagating wave
[18]. The peak excitation frequency used in the study is 340 kHz and its fourth harmonic, 1,360 kHz
is expected to be generated as a result of contact nonlinearity. Therefore the mesh size should be
able to capture 1,360 kHz. Only A
0
and S
0
modes of Lamb wave are involved in the analysis and A
0

mode has the smaller wavelength at 1,360 kHz which is 1.847 mm. Accordingly, element size of
0.35 mm is used for the simulation. The plate and PW transducer models are meshed through
mapped meshing option which gives uniform distribution of elements throughout the model. The
nodes on the upper and the lower faces of the PW transducer models are electrically coupled to form
master nodes separately on both the faces. Zero voltage constraint is applied on the master nodes at

the bonded faces of the patches. Excitation voltage is applied at the master node on the top face in
case of the PW actuator. In the case of the PW sensor, voltage is measured at the master node on its
top face.
Newmark algorithm is used here for time integration in FE analysis with = 0.25 and = 0.5
where and are the Newmark parameters. For these values of and the Newmark algorithm is
unconditionally stable [18]. In this case, the time step size to be used is based on the trade-off
between the desired accuracy and computational efforts. The accuracy in the integrations can be
stated in terms of period elongation and amplitude decay [18]. In the FE simulation of Lamb wave
propagation, both period elongation and amplitude decay affect the group velocity. Therefore a
convergence study is carried out to decide the appropriate time step for solution so that the group
velocities of A
0
and S
0
Lamb wave modes obtained through simulation are in good agreement with
those obtained analytically while requiring optimal simulation efforts both in terms of time of
simulation and space required in the computer. Accordingly, the time step 2 10
7
seconds is used
for the simulation.
To model the contact nonlinearity at the crack, the two faces are assigned CONTA172 (3-node
surface-to-surface contact) and TARGE169 (target segment) elements respectively. The algorithm
used here to solve the contact problem is the Augmented Lagrange (AL) method. The AL method is
an iterative series of penalty updates to find the contact tractions. It has advantages over other
methods, such as more penetration control, better conditioning of governing equations, and
satisfaction of constraints with finite penalties [11]. Friction is assumed to be insignificant in the
present contact problem. Therefore AL algorithm is implemented here under frictionless condition.
The FE analysis is carried out for 8.5 cycles, 300 Volt (peak to peak) Gaussian input signal
having central frequencies mentioned in Table 2. The Fourier transform of the signal received at the
PW sensor in case of the test plate without damage is shown in Fig. 4, which does not show any
higher harmonic. The Fourier transform of the signal received in case of the test plate with the crack
depth of 50% of plate thickness is also shown in Fig. 4, which shows three higher harmonics at 510
kHz, 765 kHz, and 1020 kHz. The comparison of arrival times of wave modes with those obtained
analytically [12] for A
0
and S
0
modes is carried out using CMWT and is shown in Fig. 5 for the test
plate without crack and with 50% crack depth. Similar results are also obtained for the test plates
with the crack depths 33% and 44%. Results shown in Figs. 4 and 5 are in accordance with the
experimental results.
Estimation of Nonlinearity Parameter
From the results observed so far, it can be said that breathing crack fabricated in the experiments
and modeled in ANSYS

using AL algorithm is capable of causing contact nonlinearity in Lamb

wave propagation. Next task is to quantify the breathing crack. For this purpose, the nonlinearity
parameter (defined as A
2
/A
1
2
, where A
1
and A
2
are the amplitudes of fundamental and second
harmonics respectively) [19] is estimated from the experimental and simulation frequency domain
results. This nonlinearity parameter has been used extensively in the literature [2] dealing with
higher harmonics, for quantifying nonlinearity. As crack depth increases the local nonlinearity in the
plate increases which eventually causes energy transfer from fundamental harmonic to higher
harmonics. This results in increase of amplitudes of higher harmonics with simultaneous decrease of
fundamental harmonic amplitude. This is evident from Fig. 6 which shows increasing trend of
with increase in crack depth. However, the trend of for experimental results is little deviated in
one of the cases. This is because, for estimating only first two harmonics are considered and it
works well when only second harmonic is generated through the cumulative effect. It does consider
the higher harmonics which also share the nonlinear effect. Therefore, it is required to define a new
damage index capable of considering more or rather all the higher harmonics generated, for
estimating the severity of damage.


Fig. 4 Simulation results in frequency domain.

(a) Plate without crack. (b) Plate with 50% crack depth.
Fig. 5 CMWT of the simulation output data.

Fig. 6 Variation of nonlinearity parameter with the crack depth.
Conclusions
Experiments carried out on the aluminium test plates with crack using Lamb wave, show presence
of three higher harmonics. In the FE simulation, contact nonlinearity is modeled at the breathing
crack using contact elements and the contact problem is solved using Augmented Lagrangian
algorithm. This simulation effectively shows three higher harmonics in the Lamb wave response.

The time-frequency analysis of the signals received at the sensor in both experiments and FE
simulation, carried out using CMWT shows that higher harmonics lie on the dispersion curves. The
nonlinearity parameter obtained from experimental and simulation results increases with increase
in crack depth. This shows that the experimental and the FE simulation procedures presented in the
paper are capable producing contact nonlinearity and thereby higher harmonics in the Lamb wave
response. The nonlinearity parameter help in quantifying the breathing crack. It is also seen that
is appropriate to use as a damage index when only second harmonic is generated cumulatively.
When more number of higher harmonics are produced a comprehensive damage index needs to be
used which may consider the effect of all the higher harmonics.
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