Detection of interfacial weakness in a lap-shear joint using shear horizontal guided waves

Abstract

This study aims to develop a shear horizontal guided wave based technique to evaluate the interfacial adhesion of aluminium-epoxy-aluminium tri-layer in a lap shear joint. A 3-D Multi-physics finite element model was developed to investigate the physics of the interaction of SH modes with a tri-layer structure. By employing the boundary stiffness approach, different cases of interfacial adhesion-ranging from perfect bond, intermediate and weak bond, were simulated. Frequency-wavenumber analysis reveals that at the bond overlap region, the incident SH₀ wave mode-converts to fundamental (SH₀-like) and first-order(SH₁-like) modes. The dispersion characteristics of first-order mode (SH₁-like) was found to be dependent on the adhesion level, and this influences the time responses collected on a receiver plate in guided wave through-transmission configuration. Experiments were carried out on aluminium-epoxy-aluminium lap shear joints using PPM-EMAT transducers. The analysis shows that this technique can detect and quantify different levels of adhesion, rather than merely classifying as good or bad bonds.