Finite element analysis of laser-generated Rayleigh wave for sizing subsurface crack in frequency domain

In order to realize the quantitative detection of subsurface cracks, finite element method (FEM) was used to study the interaction of laser-generated Rayleigh wave and subsurface crack with different buried depths and lengths in this paper. The transmitted and reflected Rayleigh waves of subsurface cracks were analyzed in frequency domain, it is found that the center frequency of transmission wave decreases with the increase of crack length when the buried depth of crack remains unchanged, and increases with the increase of crack depth when the crack length remains unchanged. The center frequency of reflected Rayleigh wave is independent of crack length, and has a quadratic function relation with the buried depth of subsurface crack. The relationships, between the ratio of buried depth to incident Rayleigh wavelength and the ratio of reflected Rayleigh wave frequency to incident Rayleigh wave frequency, and the ratio of crack length to incident Rayleigh wavelength and the ratio of transmitted Rayleigh wave frequency to incident Rayleigh wave frequency, were obtained respectively based on the frequency analysis. The relationships were verified by the simulation signals, it is found that the maximum relative error of the buried depth of the subsurface cracks determined by the proposed relationship is 5.939%, and the maximum relative error of the length of the subsurface cracks is 12.149%. The research results show that the proposed method is promising in quantitative characterization of the buried depth and length of subsurface cracks in metallic materials.