Laser-ultrasonic surface wave dispersion measurements on surface-treated metals

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) velocity spectroscopy has been long considered to be one of the leading candidates for nondestructive characterization of surface-treated metals because of its ability to probe the material properties at different penetration depths depending on the inspection frequency. We developed a high-precision laser-ultrasonic technique to study the feasibility of SAW dispersion spectroscopy for residual stress assessment on shot-peened metals. This technique is capable of measuring SAW dispersion with a relative error of 0.1% over a frequency range from 2 to 15 MHz. Our experimental results obtained from shot-peened aluminum 2024-T351 samples indicate that the dispersion of the surface wave is a superposition of different effects of surface treatment in the material, including surface roughness, compressive residual stress, and cold work. Although the surface roughness induced component is often the dominating part of the overall dispersion, the experimental results also indicate that it is feasible to observe a perceivable change in the dispersion of the SAW when the specimen is heat-treated at different temperatures, which has no perceivable effect on the surface roughness. The part of the dispersion, which changes during annealing via thermal relaxation, is due to near-surface residual stresses and the decay of texture, although at high frequencies nonuniform grain coarsening could also play a significant role.