Damage severity assessment in composite structures using multi-frequency lamb waves

When a narrowband tone burst excitation signal is used to generate Lamb waves in the thin composite plates, a suitable frequency of the excitation signal is typically chosen to excite a solitary mode of Lamb wave in the structure. However, if and as the damage severity changes in the structure, it may be possible that the frequency of the excitation signal may influence the response metric. In the present work, the use of a chirp signal as an excitation signal for damage severity assessment is proposed. The use of a chirp signal as an excitation signal may prove suitable for damage severity assessment because the chirp response contains a large frequency bandwidth, and the cumulative effect of all the frequencies with the delamination is reflected in the damage index. The sensitivity of the chirp response to varying delamination sizes is investigated through numerical simulations and experiments. The damage index calculated using the chirp response showed a monotonic trend with an increase in damage severity, in contrast to a bidirectional trend of the damage index when conventional narrow excitation signals are used.