Improved Global-Local Method for Ultrasonic Guided Wave Scattering Predictions in Composite Waveguides and Defects

Abstract As structures increase in complexity, in the use of high-performing materials and designs, their health assessment becomes increasingly challenging. Ultrasonic guided waves (UGWs) have shown to be very promising in the inspection of large (i.e. aerospace components) attenuating (i.e. composite materials) structures and have been successfully employed for damage detection in a variety of fields. The intrinsic complex nature of UGWs, due to their dispersive behavior, combined with the structural complexity of the applications, though, makes the interpretation of UGW inspections very challenging. Numerical simulations of UGW propagation become crucial to this end and have been address…