Diffraction Effects on Ultrasonic Guided Waves Radiated or Received By Transducers Mounted on the Section of the Guide

The Semi‐Analytic Finite Element method (SAFE) has been used to model the propagation of ultrasonic waves guided (GW) by a structure and radiated at the guiding surface, a classical configuration for nondestructive testing (NDT) of large structures. Here, the SAFE method is derived to deal with configurations where ultrasonic source / receiver are mounted on the guide section. It allows to predict very efficiently amplitudes and waveforms of propagating, inhomogeneous and evanescent modes in such configurations. The model is used to study transducer diffraction effects and their implications to GW‐NDT.