Excitation mechanisms and dispersion characteristics of guided waves in multilayered cylindrical solid media

This paper first reviews a method of simulating the propagation characteristics of guided waves in multilayered coaxial cylindrical elastic solid media. Secondly, this method is used to investigate the properties of the guided waves for the ultrasonic long-range non-destructive evaluation techniques for rockbolts. To do so, the special case of non-leaky guided modes in open waveguides is considered. The method explains how the complex dispersion function is converted into a real function: hence the bisection technique can be employed to search for all the real roots. The model is used to (i) characterize the low dispersion range and anomalous dispersion of normal and Stoneley modes and (ii) analyze the excitation mechanisms of guided waves from axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric acoustic sources. The results are used to select suitable excitation frequency ranges associated with dominant modes with large amplitudes, low dispersion, and distinguishable propagation velocities to reduce signal distortion. The results suggest the lowest order flexural mode, excited by a radial force source, has potential to be used in practice. Also, the highly dispersive Stoneley mode propagating along a cylindrical interface is defined and distinguished from the normal mode using two properties, velocity high-frequency asymptotes and amplitude distributions along the radial direction.