Guided wave dispersion curves for a bar with an arbitrary cross-section, a rod and rail example

Theoretical and experimental issues of acquiring dispersion curves for bars of arbitrary cross-section are discussed. Since a guided wave can propagate over long distances in a structure, guided waves have great potential for being applied to the rapid non-destructive evaluation of large structures such as rails in the railroad industry. Such fundamental data as phase velocity, group velocity, and wave structure for each guided wave mode is presented for structures with complicated cross-sectional geometries as rail. Phase velocity and group velocity dispersion curves are obtained for bars with an arbitrary cross-section using a semi-analytical finite element method. Since a large number of propagating modes with close phase velocities exist, dispersion curves consisting of only dominant modes are obtained by calculating the displacement at a received point for each mode. These theoretical dispersion curves agree in characteristic parts with the experimental dispersion curves obtained by a two-dimensional Fourier transform technique.