An improved time reversal method for diagnostics of composite plates using Lamb waves

Abstract The time reversal method has been widely used to detect damage in composite plates. Based on the time reversibility of Lamb waves, the waveform of the original input signal will be reconstructed after the time reversal process. However, the time reversal operator of Lamb waves in composite plates is a function of frequency. Thus the shape of the reconstructed signal will not be identical to that of the original input signal. To alleviate the effects of the time reversal operator, an improved time reversal method (ITRM) is proposed. In this method, the response signal in the forward path and the reconstructed signal in the time reversed path are both modulated by a weight vector which is obtained as the product of a window function and the reciprocal of amplitude dispersion. The window function varies with the excitation signal adaptively, and its shape is also determined by a threshold. An experimental example is then introduced to illustrate the effectiveness of the ITRM. The results show that the time reversibility can be greatly enhanced and the impact damage in the composite plate can be exactly located by the ITRM.