This paper studies the mode selection of Lamb waves for evaluating solid plates with liquid loading. For this purpose, the Lamb wave selected should have the features such as zero normal displacement components at the plate surface in contact with liquid, small dispersion, and maximum group velocity. It is found that when the phase velocity of Lamb wave is equal to the longitudinal wave velocity of the plate material, its normal displacement at the plate surface is always zero. Through the numerical analyses, the specific S2 Lamb wave that has zero normal displacement component at the plate surface, small dispersion and maximum group velocity compared with the other Lamb waves has been found. With respect to the specific S2 Lamb wave, some experimental examinations have been carried out. It is found that the liquid loading on the plate surface has less influence on the specific S2 Lamb wave signal but it can effectively eliminate the other signals. Moreover, the specific S2 Lamb wave selected exhibits the capability of detecting multiple defects in the solid plate with the liquid loading. It can be concluded that the specific S2 Lamb wave selected is suitable for the evaluation of solid plates with liquid loading.
A modal expansion approach has been proposed for investigating generation of ultrasonic Lamb waves by electromagnetic acoustic transducers（EMATs）.Based on the current distribution of the EMAT＇s meandering coil,the formal solution for the Lorentz surface stress applied on the plate surface has been derived.Then the function of the wave-number spectral density of the Lorentz surface stress for generating ultrasonic Lamb waves has been obtained using the spatial Fourier transform.On this basis,with the modal expansion approach for waveguide excitation,the mathematical expression of the Lamb wave＇s mode expansion coefficient has been deduced,which is closely related with the geometrical parameters of the EMAT＇s meandering coil.The mathematical relationship between the Lamb wave＇s mode expansion coefficient and the EMAT＇s geometrical parameters,obtained in this paper,lays a theoretical foundation for exactly analyzing generation of Lamb waves by EMATs.Further,the numerical analyses performed indicate that the Lamb wave＇s mode expansion coefficient can be appropriately adjusted by changing the geometrical parameters of the EMAT＇s coil,and thus the unwanted Lamb wave modes can be effectively restrained.This result provides a theoretical basis for generating a single and pure Lamb wave mode by the meandering coil EMAT.
