NDT&E International 34 (2001) 19

www.elsevier.com/locate/ndteint

The effect of dispersion on long-range inspection

using ultrasonic guided waves
P. Wilcox*, M. Lowe, P. Cawley
NDT Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2BX, UK
Received 31 January 2000; received in revised form 31 March 2000; accepted 3 April 2000

Abstract
The dispersion of ultrasonic guided waves causes wave-packets to spread out in space and time as they propagate through a structure. This
limits the resolution that can be obtained in a long-range guided wave inspection system. A technique is presented for quickly predicting the
rate of spreading of a dispersive wave-packet as it propagates. It is shown that the duration of a wave-packet increases linearly with
propagation distance. It is also shown that the duration of a wave-packet after a given propagation distance can be minimised by optimising
the input signal. A dimensionless parameter called minimum resolvable distance (MRD) is dened that enables a direct comparison to be
made between the resolution attainable at different operating points. Some conclusions are made concerning the resolution of various
operating points for the case of Lamb waves in an aluminium plate. q 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Dispersion; Guided waves; Lamb waves; Long-range testing

1. Background
1.1. Guided waves and non-destructive inspection
Much work has been published on the use of Lamb waves
and other guided waves for inspection purposes and a
comprehensive review of applications may be found in
Ref. [1]. Very broadly speaking, the use of guided waves
for non-destructive inspection purposes falls into two categories depending on the distance of propagation. Firstly,
there are short-range applications, where guided waves are
used to obtain information about a specimen that cannot be
readily obtained by more conventional means. These areas
include the determination of the elastic properties of materials [2,3], the detection of defects near to interfaces such
as in the inspection of adhesive joints [4] and air coupled
ultrasonic inspection of thin specimens [5]. In these cases,
sensitivity is of key importance and generally this is the
main criterion for selecting a suitable guided wave mode.
The effect of dispersion is relatively unimportant as the
propagation distances are small.
This paper is concerned with the second area of guided
wave applications where the propagation distance is large.
These include the detection of delaminations in rolled steel
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 144-0171-594-7227; fax: 144-0171-5801560.
E-mail address: p.wilcox@ic.ac.uk (P. Wilcox).

[6,7] and composites [8], pipeline [911] and plate [12]

inspection. In long-range applications, the aim is to inspect
large areas of a structure rapidly.
1.2. Long-range inspection using guided waves
In long-range guided wave testing applications, the
guided waves are excited by a short burst of energy (the
input signal) applied by a suitable transducer at one location
on a structure. The excitation causes a packet of guided
waves (the wave-packet) to propagate away from the transducer into the surrounding structure. Then either the same
transducer or a second transducer is used to detect signals
caused by reections of energy in the wave-packet from
surrounding structural features or defects.
The problems associated with the use guided waves for
inspection purposes are well documented [13]. In summary,
multiple modes of guided wave propagation are possible in
most structures and these modes are generally dispersive
(i.e. their velocities are frequency-dependent). In order to
obtain useful data from a guided wave inspection system, it
is necessary to selectively excite and detect a single guided
wave mode while suppressing coherent noise due to other
modes of guided wave propagation. For this reason, the
design of the transducer and the input signal are tailored
so that the excitation energy is targeted at a single point
on a suitable guided wave mode at a suitable frequency.
This point is called the operating point.

0963-8695/01/$ - see front matter q 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0963-869 5(00)00024-4

P. Wilcox et al. / NDT&E International 34 (2001) 19

Fig. 1. (a) Numerical simulation of the spacetime map illustrating the dispersive propagation of the S0 mode in a 1-mm thick aluminium plate when the input
signal is a 5-cycle Hanning windowed toneburst with a centre frequency of 2 MHz. Below are numerical predictions from the same model that show the timetraces that would be received, (b) close to the source, (c) 50 mm from the source and (d) 100 mm from the source.

Examples of transducers that may be used to excite

and detect guided waves include inter-digital or comb
transducers that operate by either piezoelectric [14,15]
or electromagnetic mechanisms [16,17]. Alternatively,
conventional plane bulk wave transducers may be used
in conjunction with a coupling wedge in the angle incidence conguration [18,19]. Suitable input signals are
windowed tonebursts with a precise centre frequency
and a limited bandwidth. The reason for using a limited
bandwidth input signal is twofold. Firstly, it helps to
prevent the excitation of undesired modes at other
frequencies and secondly it reduces the effect of dispersion on the propagation of the desired mode [13]. The
studies presented here are concerned solely with the
effect of dispersion. For this reason, it is implicitly
assumed throughout that a suitable transducer can be
designed so that single mode excitation can be attained
at any operating point on any guided wave mode. The
practicalities of actually achieving this are beyond the
scope of this paper.

1.3. Manifestation of dispersion effects

The effect of dispersion is that the energy in a wavepacket propagates at different speeds depending on its
frequency. This manifests itself as a spreading of the
wave-packet in space and time as it propagates through a
structure. This is illustrated in Fig. 1(a), which shows the
propagation of the S0 Lamb wave mode in a 1 mm thick
aluminium plate after excitation with a 5-cycle Hanning
windowed toneburst with a centre frequency of 2 MHz.
This type of graphical representation of dispersion will be
referred to as a spacetime map and the means by which it is
calculated is summarised in the following section. The xaxis on the spacetime map represents time measured from
the moment the excitation signal starts and the y-axis is the
distance of propagation measured from the excitation location. The greyscale level indicates the value of a suitable
quantity that is affected by the passage of the guided wave.
In this case the quantity used is the out-of-plane displacement of the surface of the plate. The propagation and

P. Wilcox et al. / NDT&E International 34 (2001) 19

spreading of the wave-packet in space and time can be

clearly seen on the spacetime map. The striped effect
within the area of the wave-packet is due to the displacements from individual wave peaks and troughs. The points
at which its envelope amplitude falls below a certain threshold level dene the boundaries of the wave-packet, and any
points outside this are coloured white in the spacetime
map. The denition of this threshold level will be discussed
later.
A propagating wave-packet is detected by a transducer
that is able to monitor a suitable quantity associated with the
wave-packet, such as the out-of-plane surface displacement,
as a function of time (a time-trace). A time-trace is a crosssection parallel to the time axis through the spacetime map
of that parameter. Example time-traces that would be
measured after propagation distances of 0.1, 50 and
100 mm are shown in Fig. 1(b), (c) and (d). In these timetraces, the effect of dispersion appears as an increase in the
duration of the wave-packet in time and a decrease in its
amplitude.
1.4. Why dispersion is undesirable
The effects of increasing wave-packet duration and
decreasing amplitude due to dispersion are both undesirable
in long range guided wave testing.
The spreading of a wave-packet in space and time reduces
the resolution that can be obtained. This problem is
frequently encountered when attempting to detect defects
in close proximity to structural features, such as welds. In
such a case, the defect can only be reliably detected if its
reection can be resolved from that due to the feature.
The reduction in amplitude of a dispersive wave-packet
reduces the sensitivity of the testing system. Although, the
studies presented here are primarily concerned with the
increase in temporal duration of a wave-packet, the decrease
in wave-packet amplitude can be estimated by using energy
conservation. On this basis and neglecting other losses, it
can be assumed to a rst approximation that the amplitude
of a wave-packet will decrease in proportion to the square
root of the increase in its duration.
1.5. Overview
The rst part of this paper describes a simple method for
quantitatively predicting the rate of wave-packet spreading
due to dispersion at any operating point on the dispersion
curves for a particular structure. The second part of the
paper explains how the practical effect of dispersion at
different operating points can be compared.
The procedures described in this paper may be used for
any structure to which long-range guided wave inspection
techniques can be applied. The list includes metallic platelike structures such as pressure vessels, multi-layered structures such as adhesive joints and cylindrical systems such as
pipes. The only requirement is that the dispersion curve data
(phase and group velocity) is available for the mode or

modes over the frequency range of interest. For the purposes

of illustrating the techniques proposed in this paper, the
simple case of Lamb waves in a 1-mm thick aluminium
plate in vacuum will be used as an example. On occasions where it is necessary to consider a single operating point, the S0 Lamb wave mode at a frequency of
2 MHz will be used.

2. Modelling dispersive propagation

2.1. Numerical prediction of dispersive propagation using
Fourier decomposition
In order to make quantitative measurements of dispersive
wave propagation, it is necessary to be able to model how a
guided wave-packet excited by an arbitrary input signal
propagates when dispersion is present. In particular, it is
desirable to be able to predict the rate at which the packet
spreads out with propagation distance. An obvious way to
do this is to make use of the phase velocity (or wavenumber)
dispersion data available for the structure and then to use a
Fourier decomposition technique to make an exact numerical prediction of the propagation. This technique was used
to generate the spacetime map and the time-traces shown
in Fig. 1 and it is summarised below.
Consider the case when a suitable guided wave transducer
(e.g. an angle incidence device or an inter-digital transducer) is used to excite guided waves in a structure. For the
purposes of this study, it is assumed that the transducer is
ideal, in that it excites only one guided wave mode and in
only one direction. Cartesian axes are dened using the
same convention as Viktorov [18] for straight crested
waves with wave propagation in the positive x-direction
and the z-axis normal to the plane of the structure. The
wave-crests are orientated parallel to the y-axis and these,
as well as the structure and the transducer, are assumed to
extend indenitely in the y-direction. The origin of the xaxis is dened so that the front edge of the transducer is
located at x 0:
The transducer is supplied with an electrical signal of
nite duration V(t), which is converted into acoustic energy.
This energy propagates away from the transducer in the
positive x-direction as a single guided wave mode. It is
assumed that at the transducer position, x 0; the variation
of a parameter in the plate, such as out-of-plane surface
displacement u with time t is directly proportional to V(t).
Although this assumption is not strictly true, it is the only
reasonable approximation that can be made without knowledge of the transducer characteristics and the excitability
function [20] of the guided wave mode.
The known function u(t) can be considered as being a
`slice' taken at x 0 through the spacetime map of the
function u(x,t), which describes the propagation of the
guided wave mode in space x and time t. If the phase velocity dispersion curve data for the system is available, then

P. Wilcox et al. / NDT&E International 34 (2001) 19

The boundaries of the wave-packet can then be computed

using one of the denitions given below.
2.2. Denition of the duration of a wave-packet

Fig. 2. The relative envelope amplitude of the wave-packet from the space
time map in Fig. 1(a) plotted using two different denitions for the reference level: (a) reference (0 dB level) is the peak amplitude of the signal at
distance equal to zero; (b) reference is re-calculated at each distance as the
peak amplitude of the wave-packet at that distance.

u(x, t) can be calculated at any other point in time and space

in the manner described below.
First u(t) is Fourier transformed to obtain its frequency
spectrum:
Uv

1 Z1
ut e2iax dt
2p 2 1

where v is angular frequency. The value of u(x,t) associated

with an individual spectral component of U(v )is given by
the wave equation:
Uv eikvx2vt

where k(v ) is the circular wavenumber that may be obtained

from the phase velocity n ph(v ) dispersion curve data by:
kv

v
nph v

The overall value of u(x, t) due to the propagation of the

input wave-packet u(t) is given by the integration of the
contributions from all the spectral components of U(v ).
To perform this integration, use is made of the fact that
because u(t) was real, U2v U p v: Hence the integration over the negative frequency range is equal to that over
the positive frequency range and the expression for u(x, t)
may be written:

Z1
Uv eikvx2vt dv
4
ux; t 2 Re
0

Hence the time signal that would be obtained if u(x, t) was

measured at any location can be computed. The Fourier
decomposition method was used to predict the spacetime
map and the time-traces shown in Fig. 1.
For the purposes of predicting the boundaries of the
wave-packet, it is more convenient to work with its envelope and this can be readily computed using the Hilbert
transform method, whereby Eq. (4) is replaced by:

Z 1


5
Envelopeux; t 2 Uv eikvx2vt dv
0

To quantify dispersion, it is necessary to be able to

measure the duration of a wave-packet and this requires a
means of dening whereabouts in time a wave-packet
begins and ends. The easiest way in which to do this is to
dene the duration by the points in time at which the envelope of the wave-packet falls below a particular reference
level. The problem that then arises is how to dene the
reference level and the two spacetime maps that are
plotted in Fig. 2 illustrate this. These are both for the
same example as that used in Fig. 1, except that in this gure
the greyscale indicates the amplitude of the signal envelope
rather than the individual wave peaks and troughs.
In the spacetime map shown in Fig. 2(a), the amplitude
over the entire spacetime map is referenced to a xed
value, and this value (i.e. 0 dB) is taken as being the peak
level of the wave-packet envelope at the source. If the duration of a wave-packet is dened in this manner then
although it initially increases, it will, after a sufcient propagation distance, begin to decrease and will ultimately reach
zero. This can be seen in Fig. 2(a), where the contours of the
greyscale form closed lobes. The reason for this is that the
increase in wave-packet duration must be accompanied by a
decrease in its amplitude as noted earlier. For the purposes
of predicting the rate of wave-packet spreading due to
dispersion, this denition is clearly not suitable since the
rate will be dependent on the distance of propagation.
A more suitable denition of the reference level yields the
spacetime map shown in Fig. 2(b). Here the amplitude at a
particular propagation distance is referenced to the peak
value of the wave-packet envelope at that distance. In this
way, the measured duration of the dispersive wave-packet
monotonically increases as it propagates. It can be seen from
Fig. 2(b) that this increase is actually a linear function of the
propagation distance. This is a useful fact and forms the
basis of the technique described below for predicting dispersive propagation.
2.3. Prediction of dispersive propagation using group
velocity dispersion curves
The Fourier decomposition procedure described
previously is an inefcient and time-consuming method of
obtaining the rate of spread of the wave-packet and it is not
suitable for the type of iterative calculation that will be
described later in this paper. This problem motivated the
development of an alternative technique for predicting the
duration of a received wave-packet after an arbitrary
propagation distance. It was shown above that a dispersive
wave-packet spreads out linearly in space and time as it
propagates if a suitable denition for the boundary of the
wave-packet is used. This means that the ends of the
envelope of the dispersive wave-packet can be regarded as

P. Wilcox et al. / NDT&E International 34 (2001) 19

Fig. 3. Group velocity dispersion curves for a 1-mm thick aluminium plate
in vacua. The vertical lines represent the bandwidth (based on the 220 dB
points of the spectrum) of a 5-cycle Hanning windowed toneburst with a
centre frequency of 2 MHz. The portion of the S0 mode that falls within this
bandwidth is emboldened and the extrema of its group velocity are indicated.

propagating with two different velocities, and it is this

difference in velocities that causes the envelope to become
longer. If these two velocities and the duration of the wavepacket at one point in space are known then the duration of
the wave-packet at any other point in space can be calculated. The method described here takes the values for these
two velocities from the group velocity dispersion curve for
the guided wave mode.
Consider a wave-packet as it passes a point in a structure.

Fig. 4. Comparison between group velocity and Fourier decomposition

methods for predicting the boundary of the wave-packet when the S0
Lamb wave mode is excited in a 1-mm thick aluminium plate by a 5cycle Hanning windowed toneburst with a centre frequency of 2 MHz.

At this point, a signal due to the wave-packet is recorded as

a function of time. It is found that the wave-packet begins to
pass the point at time t1 and nishes passing the point at the
later time t2. The same wave-packet is then recorded as it
passes a second point a distance l beyond the rst point. The
wave-packet starts to pass the second point at time t3 and
nishes passing at time t4. If the packet of guided waves
contains waves with a range of group velocities from n min to
n max, then the temporal limits of the wave-packet as it passes
the second point may be expressed in terms of these velocities. The time t3, when the wave-packet rst reaches the
second point cannot be earlier than the time taken for waves
propagating at the maximum velocity n max to travel the
distance l starting at time t1. Similarly, the time t4 at
which the wave-packet nishes passing the second point
cannot be later than the time taken for waves propagating
with the minimum velocity n min to travel the distance l
starting at time t2. Hence the start and end of the wavepacket after it has propagated a distance l are:
t3 t1 1

l
nmax

t4 t2 1

l
nmin

Again the example of the propagation of the S0 mode in a

1 mm thick aluminium plate after excitation with a 5-cycle
Hanning windowed toneburst at a centre frequency of
2 MHz is considered. The bandwidth of such a signal is
obtained by nding the frequencies at which the spectral
amplitude falls a certain number of decibels below its maximum value at the centre frequency. The choice of this value
is somewhat arbitrary but in this case a value of 20 dB is
used which yields a frequency range from 1.32 to 2.68 MHz.
The group velocity dispersion curves for a 1-mm thick
aluminium plate are shown in Fig. 3. These were obtained
using the software suite Disperse [21]. The bandwidth of
the input signal is indicated and the dispersion curve for the
S0 mode is emboldened in this region. The group velocity
over this region ranges from a minimum of 1.791 mm/ms at
the dip in the curve at 2.48 MHz to a maximum of 4.827
mm/ms at the lower limit of the bandwidth at 1.32 MHz and
these are the values used for n min and n max. If t1 is set equal to
zero, then t2 is the initial wave-packet duration of 2.5 ms (i.e.
ve times the period of one cycle). With this information
and the velocity limits just calculated, a spacetime map
showing just the boundary of the propagating wave-packet
can be plotted as shown by the dotted lines in Fig. 4. For
comparison, the signal envelope amplitude predicted using
the Fourier decomposition method that was shown in Fig.
2(b) is also plotted in Fig. 4. It can be seen that boundaries of
the wave-packet that are predicted by the two methods are in
reasonably good agreement.
It is important to stress that the benets of the group
velocity technique are its speed and simplicity and its use
is for making comparative measurements of wave-packet
spreading. It is not suitable for making absolute predictions
because it is highly sensitive to the denition of the bandwidth of the input signal. This is a shortcoming that the

P. Wilcox et al. / NDT&E International 34 (2001) 19

Fig. 5. Example, in this case for the S0 mode at 2 MHz in a 1-mm thick
aluminium plate, showing the variation of the duration of the received
signal with the number of cycles in the input signal (a Hanning windowed
toneburst) for various propagation distances.

Fourier decomposition technique does not suffer from, as

that technique uses contributions from all the spectral
components of the input signal with their appropriate amplitudes.
However, it should be stressed that neither of the techniques that have been described makes a perfectly accurate
prediction of the wave-packet duration since they are both
subject to the same initial approximation. This is the
assumption that the spectrum of the excited wave-packet
in the structure is the same as that of the input signal
supplied to the transducer. This is not true due to the characteristics of the transducer itself and the excitability of a
guided wave mode. Both of these are functions of frequency
that cause the spectrum of the wave-packet to be distorted
compared to the spectrum of the input signal. The justication is that over a limited bandwidth these factors are sufciently slowly varying functions of frequency for their
effects to be ignored. For the reasons mentioned earlier,
the input signals used in long range guided wave testing
are usually of limited bandwidth, so this approximation is
reasonable.

3. Quantication of dispersive propagation

3.1. Resolvable distance
Having developed a tool for predicting the rate of wavepacket spreading and therefore the duration of a received
wave-packet, the next stage is to obtain a useful quantity by
which to make comparative measurements of the dispersion
at different operating points on the dispersion curves for a
particular system. An obvious quantity to compare is the
rate of wave-packet spreading with propagation distance.

However, this can only be computed if the input signal is

specied, which leads to the problem of how to dene a
standard input signal at different frequencies. One possibility is to dene the standard input signal as being a windowed toneburst containing a xed number of cycles at all
frequencies. From this denition, it is straightforward to
calculate the rate of wave-packet spreading at every point
on the dispersion curves for a particular system using the
technique described above. A second possibility is to dene
the standard input signal as a windowed toneburst containing a number of cycles proportional to the centre frequency
so that its duration is constant at all frequencies. From this
denition, a second set of values for the rate of wave-packet
spreading could be calculated for every point on the dispersion curves of a system. Unfortunately, the results obtained
using these two denitions of input signal are signicantly
different. Because of the ambiguity in how to specify the
input signal, the rate of wave-packet spreading alone is not a
suitable quantity for comparing different operating points.
This motivated the development of the alternative procedure
to compare different operating points described below.
Instead of considering the rate of signal spreading at a
particular operating point, the best resolution that can be
obtained is examined. If the initial temporal duration of a
wave-packet is Tin then after propagating a distance l the
new temporal duration, Tout, will be:
Tout Tdisp 1 Tin

where Tdisp is the increase in wave-packet duration due to

dispersion. Using the technique for predicting dispersion
based on group velocity described previously, this can be
written as:
Tdisp l1=nmin 2 1=nmax

In order to obtain a measure of the spatial resolution associated with the wave-packet, its temporal duration Tout is
multiplied by a nominal group velocity n 0. For the purposes
of this study, n 0 is dened as the group velocity at the centre
frequency of the wave-packet, since in practice this is velocity that is used when converting the arrival times of
signals to propagation distances. In order to make the spatial
resolution dimensionless, it is divided by a characteristic
thickness dimension d of the system to give what will be
dened as the resolvable distance:
Resolvable distance

Tout n0
d

n0
l1=nmin 2 1=nmax 1 Tin
d

3.2. Minimum resolvable distance and optimised input

signal
It can be seen from Eqs. (7) and (9) that the duration of a
wave-packet and hence the resolvable distance is governed
by two terms, the rst term being due to the increase in

P. Wilcox et al. / NDT&E International 34 (2001) 19

Fig. 6. (a) MRD curves for Lamb waves in a 1-mm thick aluminium plate and a propagation distance of 1000 mm and (b) the associated curves illustrating the
optimum number of cycles required in the input signals in order to attain the MRD at each point. The circles indicate points of maximum group velocity.

wave-packet length due to dispersion and the second term

being the length of the input signal. At a particular
frequency and with a small number of cycles in the input
signal, Tin will be small, but its bandwidth will be large and
dispersion effects will therefore be signicant. As the
number of cycles in the input signal is increased, its bandwidth decreases and the size of the dispersion term in Eq. (9)
also decreases. However, the Tin term will increase. At some
point, an optimum input signal will be found that minimises
the duration of the wave-packet and therefore the resolvable
distance.
To illustrate this, the example of the S0 Lamb wave mode
in a 1 mm thick aluminium plate around a centre frequency
of 2 MHz will again be considered. Fig. 5 shows a graph of
the duration of wave-packet vs. number of cycles in the
input signal for various distances of propagation. In all
cases, the input signal is assumed to be a Hanning windowed toneburst. It can be seen that the curve for each
propagation distance has a characteristic `tick' shape. The
minimum of each curve represents the number of cycles in
the optimum input signal for that propagation distance. It
can be seen that as the propagation distance is increased, so
does the number of cycles in the optimum input signal and
the associated minimum duration of the wave-packet. The
locus of this minimum is indicated by the dotted line.
Although this line appears to be approximately straight,
there is no reason why it should be since the group velocity
curves are not linear functions of frequency. The minimum
duration of wave-packet that can be achieved at an operating
point for a given propagation distance denes the minimum

resolvable distance (MRD):

MRD

n0
l1=nmin 2 1=nmax 1 Tin umin
d

10

The MRD curves for Lamb waves in the example structure

can now be calculated and the results for a propagation
distance of 1000 mm are shown in Fig. 6(a). The procedure
used to calculate the value of MRD at each point on these
curves is an iterative one whereby the number of cycles in
the input signal is optimised to minimise the duration of the
wave-packet after a propagation distance of 1000 mm. A
side product of the calculation of MRD is the optimum
number of cycles in the input signal. Hence a second set
of curves showing the optimum number of cycles in the
input signal may be obtained. These are plotted for the
example structure in Fig. 6(b).
3.3. Discussion of results for Lamb waves in a 1-mm thick
aluminium plate in vacuum
For a long-range guided wave inspection system, it is
desirable to operate at a point where the MRD is as low
as possible. It can be seen from the curves shown in Fig.
6(a) that as the frequency is increased the MRD for each
Lamb wave mode passes through an initial minimum
followed by a number of further maxima and minima before
eventually decreasing monotonically. This last portion
occurs as the velocity of each Lamb wave mode tends to a
constant value (equal to the Rayleigh wave velocity for the
fundamental modes and the bulk shear wave velocity for

P. Wilcox et al. / NDT&E International 34 (2001) 19

Table 1
Centre frequency, MRD and number of cycles required in optimum input signal at various points of low MRD on the rst six Lamb wave modes in a 1-mm
thick aluminium plate. A propagation distance of 1000 mm is assumed
Mode

A0

S0

A1

S1

A2

S2

Frequency (MHz)
Optimum cycles in input signal
MRD

1.47
8
26

0.15
1
51

2.67
27
56

4.05
41
65

6.27
69
53

6.78
52
48

higher order modes) at high frequencies. From the point of

view of long-range guided wave testing, the region of interest on each mode is at lower frequencies. For this reason, it
is desirable that such testing takes place at an operating
point on or close to one of the minima on the MRD curve
for a particular mode. It is also generally preferable to operate at a point where the group velocity is a maximum rather
than a minimum. Reference to the group velocity dispersion
curves for a 1-mm thick aluminium plate will indicate that
the maximum in group velocity for a mode corresponds to the
lowest frequency minimum in MRD for that mode. For the rst
six Lamb wave modes, these points are indicated by circles in
Fig. 6(a) and (b), and they are tabulated in Table 1. It is
interesting to observe that the MRD at these points does not
exhibit any signicant upward or downward trend with
frequency. This is not the same as conventional bulk wave
ultrasonic testing where high frequencies are associated
with short wavelengths and high resolutions. In long-range
guided wave testing, the resolution is determined by the
length of the wave-packet and not by the wavelength of
individual waves. The exception to this is at frequencies
below the rst minimum in MRD on the S0 mode. Here
the group velocity is almost constant with frequency and
hence dispersion is negligible. For this reason, the optimum
input signal is made as short as possible, which is toneburst
containing a single cycle. Hence in this low frequency
region on this mode, the MRD tends to a value equal to
one wavelength.
The conclusion from this study is that there is no benet
(in terms of resolution) in using higher order Lamb wave
modes for long-range testing. An operating point on one of
the fundamental modes below the cut-off frequency of the
A1 mode is attractive in practice, since only the two fundamental Lamb wave modes can propagate. Furthermore, the
fundamental modes are well separated in phase velocity in
this frequency region. Both of these factors make the design
of modally selective transducers considerably easier.
For a long-range testing application, the operating point
at the minimum in MRD on the A0 mode at 1.47 MHz is
especially attractive since the mode at that point is very
easily excitable and detectable by any transduction method
that couples to out-of-plane surface displacement [20]. The
only problem with the A0 mode is that it is highly attenuated
if the plate is immersed in a liquid. This is because the outof-plane component of the displacement at the surface of the
plate couples to the surrounding liquid and causes energy to
be radiated away from the plate in the form of bulk compres-

sion waves. For this reason, the A0 mode is not suitable for
the inspection of structures such as liquid-lled tanks and
pressure vessels. In these situations, it is desirable to operate
at a point where the attenuation of a guided wave mode due
to leakage is small. Although several of the operating points
in Table 1 can be shown to satisfy this requirement [20],
there is no benet from the point of view of obtaining good
resolution at operating at any point other than that on the S0
mode at 0.15 MHz. Here, the mode is again well separated
from other modes in phase velocity, so the suppression of
unwanted modes is straightforward.
It should be stressed that all the results presented here
relate purely to the propagation of guided waves and do
not take any account of how a mode interacts with a particular feature or defect. For this reason, it should not be
assumed that a point of good resolution on a mode is
necessarily a point of high sensitivity to the defects it is
desired to detect.
4. Conclusion
A simple technique has been presented for predicting the
spreading of a dispersive packet of guided waves as it propagates through a structure. If an appropriate denition for the
duration of a wave-packet is made, then it has been shown
that the spreading of a wave-packet is linear with propagation distance. A parameter called minimum resolvable
distance (MRD) has been introduced that enables a comparison to be made between the effect of dispersion at different
operating points. In the case of a 1-mm thick aluminium
plate in vacuum, the MRD has been used to show that the
best operating point in terms of resolution is at 1.47 MHz on
the fundamental anti-symmetric mode A0. It has also been
shown that there is no benet in terms of resolution from
operating on a higher order mode at higher frequency.
Resolution, attenuation and defect sensitivity are three of
the criteria that make up a general rationalised strategy
developed by the authors for selecting the operating point
for a guided wave inspection system for a particular structure [20].
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