Application of orthogonality-relation for the separation of Lamb modes at a plate edge: numerical and experimental predictions.

In this study the orthogonality relation-based method for post-processing finite element (FE) predictions and experimental measurements is applied in order to separate Lamb modes at a plate edge at normal incidence. The scattered wave field from the free edge is assumed to be a superposition of all the eigenmodes of an infinite plate. The eigenmode amplitudes of the reflected wave field are determined by implementing the orthogonality-based method on the measured plate edge displacements. Overlapping wavepackets of Lamb modes at a plate edge are simulated by using the FE model and the experiment in the case of an incident S0 mode in a plate with a notch. In the experiment a 3D Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer (3D SLDV) (Johansmann and Sauer, 2005) is used to measure 3 dimensional vibrations and thus the edge two-dimensional displacement components simultaneously. It is demonstrated that it is possible to extract signals of various propagating and non-propagating modes in time-domain. The influences of the errors in practical measurements on the extraction procedure have also been studied.