Quantitative Diagnostics of Multilayered Composite Structures with Ultrasonic Guided Waves

Aging infrastructure has a major impact on safety, increasing the need to assess damage severity. Machinery, systems, and components such as airplanes, cars, pumps, and pipes in the oil and chemical industry are subject to varying cyclic service loading and environmental influences. Sometimes multilayered coatings are used, requiring a high-resolution inspection to confirm the presence of a defect such as a delamination, and accurately locate and quantify its size. Highly attenuating materials may significantly increase the inspection time while limiting defect observability. Guided waves have been recognized as having excellent potential for nondestructive inspection. However, the presence of viscoelastic coatings used for corrosion protection is one of the major obstacles for guided wave inspection.