Ultrasonic waves propagation in absorbing thin plates application to paper characterization

Guided wave theory is applied to a thin orthotropic and absorbing plate for low frequency propagation of ultrasonic waves. The aim of this paper is to give some physical interpretations of the non-destructive characterization of paper materials, which are cellulosic fibrous networks. It is shown that the propagation problem reduces to two normal modes of propagation in the plane of the plate. Each of them depends on four complex and independent stiffnesses that are combinations of elementary complex stiffnesses of the media. The imaginary part of these stiffnesses corresponds to a possible mechanism of energy dissipation during the wave propagation for this kind of material. The reverse problem, which gives four complex values, is then numerically solved using a small attenuation assumption. The specially designed experimental set-up has led to the first measurements of tracing paper damping factors. The phase velocity measurements of the plate waves agree with the results already found by several paper researchers. As a particular and new result, the shear wave velocities are found to present a quasi-isotropic repartition in the plane of the paper sheet. It was found that the absorbing phenomenon can occur for each propagation mode in such a material. The attenuation values are small, except for one of them that corresponds to a coupling term in the propagation model. The anisotropy of their repartition is also shown in the case of quasi-longitudinal waves.