Travel time Lamb wave tomography has been shown to be an effective nondestructive evaluation （NDE） technique for plate-like structures. The methods used previously to extract arrival times of the fastest or multi Lamb wave modes are mostly based on various timefrequency methods such as Wigner-Ville distribution, shorttime Fourier transform, and recently explored wavelet transform（WT）. Frankly speaking, uses of these signal processing methods improve the accuracy of the arrival time extraction to a great extent relative to directly extract arrival times in time-domain from Lamb waveforms. Hilbert-Huang transform（HHT） is also an efficient way for analyzing and processing non-stationary signals. The resolving power of time and frequency is restricted from Heisenberg principle in wavelet analysis, while in HHT, the time resolving power is precise and steady, and frequency resolving power is adaptive according to signal intrinsic characteristics. Conclusion can be made that the HI-IT method is more adaptive than WT anal;/sis in ~.!~M~ zing non-stationary signals. Based on the abo~, ~tiaf method is attempted to extract arrival times from Lamb waveforms in this paper. The Lamb wave tomography images generated with arrival times from HHT method were compared with those of WT. The results show that the new method improves the quality of tomography image, which demonstrates the applicability of HHT method in extracting arrival times of Lamb waves.
Excitation and propagation of Lamb waves by using rectangular and circular piezoelectric transducers surface- bonded to an isotropic plate are investigated in this work. Analytical stain wave solutions are derived for the two transducer shapes, giving the responses of these transducers in Lamb wave fields. The analytical study is supported by a numericM simulation using the finite element method. Symmetric and antisymmetric components in the wave propagation responses are inspected in detail with respect to test parameters such as the transducer geometry, the length and the excitation frequency. By placing only one piezoelectric transducer on the top or the bottom surface of the plate and weakening the strength of one mode while enhancing the strength of the other modes to find the centre frequency, with which the peak wave amplitude ratio between the SO and A0 modes is maximum, a single mode excitation from the multiple modes of the Lamb waves can be achieved approximately. Experimental data are presented to show the validity of the analyses. The results are used to optimize the Lamb wave detection system.
