Study of the scattering of leaky Rayleigh waves at the extremity of a fluid-loaded thick plate

A study by means of the Schlieren technique for the visualization of the ultrasonic beams has revealed that when the leaky Rayleigh waves propagating along the horizontal edge of a thick fluid-loaded solid plate are scattered at the extremity of the plate, they travel around the corner and start leaking into the liquid along the Rayleigh angle measured from the normal to the vertical edge of the plate. Furthermore, the study reveals that the leaky Rayleigh waves are stimulated by the border of an incident ultrasonic-bounded beam more than by the interior of the beam. A comparison with an earlier work shows that the characteristics of the scattering of the leaky Rayleigh waves at the edge of the plate is very different from that of the Scholte–Stoneley waves.