Importance of the near Lamb mode imaging of multilayered composite plates

In recent years Lamb waves are being used for internal defect detection in multilayered composite plates. Different Lamb modes generate various stress levels in different layers. As a result, all Lamb modes are not equally sensitive to internal defects of various layers. A number of studies have been carried out to identify which Lamb mode is most effective for detecting defects in a specific layer. However, one shortcoming of the Lamb wave inspection technique is that in a symmetrically layered composite plate stress and displacement magnitudes and energy distribution profiles for all Lamb modes are symmetric about the central plane of the plate. As a result, the ability of a Lamb mode to detect defects in a specific layer of the plate is identical to its ability to detect defects in the corresponding layer of mirror symmetry. Hence, from the Lamb wave generated image one cannot distinguish between the defects in these two layers of mirror symmetry. In this paper it is investigated how by fine-tuning the frequency and the striking angle of the incident beam in the neighborhood of a Lamb mode one can separately detect internal defects in layers of mirror symmetry in the upper and lower halves of a plate.