Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Measurements in Composites

Air-coupled ultrasound is a non-contact technique and has clear advantages over water-coupled testing. This work aims at gaining quantitative understanding of the principles underlining air-coupled ultrasonic measurement. The transmission of air-coupled ultrasonic energy through a plate is measured experimentally; model calculation of the transmission coefficient, taking into account the real transducer characteristics, is compared with the experimental results. The occurrence of "Poisson bright spot" in the flaw images of thin laminates and honeycomb composites were investigated; A qualitative comparison with a model based on the Fresnel's wave theory of light is discussed. Through transmission C-scans at 120 and 400 kHz using focused transmitter and receiver were studied.