Study of Wave Motion on Tubulars Using Broad-band
Laser Ultrasound
by M.E. Baltazar-Lrpez, C.P. Burger, R. Chona and S. Suh
ABSTRACT--We investigate the transition characteristics
of laser-generated ultrasonic waves propagating along the
axial and circumferential directions in tubulars. The thermo-
acousto-photonic non-destructive evaluation technique is
employed to initiate broad-band surface and guided waves
in tubulars of several different outer diameters and wall thick-
nesses. A non-contact broad-band optical sensor known as
fiber-tip interferometry is used for wave acquisition. Wave dis-
persion as a function of thickness to mean radius ratio is
resolved using a Gabor wavelet transform based algorithm.
The algorithm enables dispersion to be established through
the deployment of just one sensing interferometer. This is in
contrast to techniques which require multiple detection loca-
tions for the determination of wave dispersion.
KEY WORDS--Laser ultrasound, cylindrical structure, Gabor
wavelet transform
Introduction
Wave motions in cylindrical structures have been widely
studied and well documented. Theoretical studies including
the formulation of theory and comparison of approximations
to exact solutions are plenty. 1-5 Armenakas et al. 5 provide a
self-contained treatment on propagation of plane harmonic
waves in circular cylinders, all within the framework of three-
dimensional theory of elasticity, Using these theories, it is
possible to study the first modes of propagation as functions
of the ratio of shell thickness to mean radius. Others have fo-
cused their work on the experimental wave motions in cylin-
ders. For example, Goldsmith et al. 6 observed the propagation
of pulses on thin and medium-thick wall hollow cylinders in
which steel spheres struck the specimens and yielded pulse
durations of 20-40 Its that correspond to a frequency content
of up to 50 kHz. A similar approach was carded out by Yin
and Yue, 7 who used dynamic loads on the ends of a multilay-
ered circular cylinder to study transient responses. There have
been studies that have looked specifically within the ultra-
sonic range. One example is the work by Cawley et al. 8 who
used electromagnetic sensors to generate cylindrical guided
M.E. Baltazar-lx~pez (SEM member; martbalt@netscape.net) is a Profes
sor Researcher, Departamento de lngenieria Mecdnica, Centro Nacional
de lnvestigacirn y Desarrollo Tecnolrgico (CENIDET), Int. del lnternado
Palmira S/N, Cuernavaca. Morelos 62490, Mexico. C.P Burger (SEM mere
ber) is Professor Emeritus, R. Chona (SEM member) is an Associate Pro-
fessor, and S. Suh (SEM member) is an Associate Professor, Department
of Mechanical Eagineering, Texas A&M Universit); College Station, Texas
77843, USA.
Original manuscript submitted: September 15, 2004.
Final manuscript received: May 31, 2005.
DOI: 10.1177/0014485105056899
9 Society for Experimental Mechanics
waves in tubulars. Rose 9 reviewed experimental techniques
available up to 2002 and discussed the future directions for
pipe inspection.
Because of the various problems associated with the use of
contact transducers on cylindrical geometry, ultrasonic wave
motions in cylindrical structures have been difficult to study
experimentally. The lack of resolution, the invasive nature of
transducers with respect to the propagating waves, the so-
phistication associated with tubular curvature and reflected
waveforms, and poor accessibility are among the difficul-
ties. By using a non-contact ultrasonic generation and de-
tection technique known as thermo-acoustic-photonic non-
destructive evaluation (TAP-NDE), Burger et al. ]~ demon-
strated that most of the difficulties could be overcome. In
conjunction with an appropriate feature extraction technique,
they showed that TAP-NDE was ideal for certain problems
involving complex or irregular geometry.
Liu and Qu "t presented a numerical solution for circum-
ferential waves that are independent of the exciting source.
In their work, eigenfunction expansion was employed to
analyze the initiated multimodal, dispersive guided waves,
Another feature extraction technique widely used for analysis
of multimode, dispersive guided waves is Fourier transform.
Such a technique requires multiple detection points in or-
der to extract feature information about the specimen being
interrogated. 12 As reported in Zupan and Hemker 13 where
two detection points were employed for measuring in-plane
surface deformations, waveforms obtained from laser-based
sensing systems were successfully processed using Fourier-
based techniques. However, when dealing with out-of-plane
displacements, several sensing locations are necessary for the
two-dimensional fast Fourier transform (FFF) technique. One
approach for alleviating the demand on resolving dispersive
waves using Fourier methods was discussed in Gao et al. 14
where linear spatial conditioning allowing for directionally
enhanced surface acoustic wave propagation was utilized,
The use of other processing techniques such as the Wigner-
Ville distribution was also reported. 15, ] 6 This paper presents a
wavelet-based method that allows feature information be ex-
tracted through the deployment of only one detection point.
The objective of the study is to integrate TAP-NDE with
Gabor wavelet transforms for the generation and detection
of guided waves in cylindrical tubing. By using wavelet
transform for processing dispersive waves, a rich set of in-
formation about the waves can be readily resolved in the
time-frequency domain using one wave acquisition sensor. 17
This is in contrast to the two-dimensional FFF method in
which multiple sensing locations are required. A comparison
Experimental Mechanics 9 427
 0.2 ~

0,15

N
!
~- 0,~'

$1

Ot J
0 0,01 0.02 003 0,04 OC~ 0.01~ 0.07
t (msec)
Fig. 1 - - M - H dispersion plotted as time versus frequency for
a thin cylindrical shell of m = h/R = 1/30, flexural mode, n = 1.
$1 = first (lowest) flexural mode, $2 first (lowest) torsional
mode, and $3 = second flexural mode

made with regard to the two signal processing techniques 18

indicates the effectiveness of wavelet transform as a preferred
tool for damage detection and health monitoring.

Theory
Dispersion curves have been commonly used for the anal-
ysis of wave motions in cylindrical structures. Mirsky and
Herrmann 3,19,20 developed a theory ( M - H theory) that de-
scribed longitudinal and circumferential wave motions in
cylinders. Using the theory, dispersion curves were obtained
for cylinders of a wide range of thickness to diameter ratios.
The inclusion of a more general Timoshenko-type theory to
address non-axially symmetric motions enabled a rich set of
wave phenomena to be studied than could classical shell the-
ories, which considered only membrane and bending effects.
The dispersion curves presented in their works were obtained
by numerically solving a characteristic wave equation. Five
roots were found as a result and each root corresponded to
a dispersion curve. These curves were plotted in terms of a
non-dimensional wave velocity (s) and a non-dimensional
wavenumber (~) for a given cylinder of thickness, h, and
mean radius, R.
Fig. 2--Reference system and stress element in a hollow
Wave dispersion is commonly represented as either
cylinder
wavenumber versus frequency, frequency versus phase veloc-
ity, or non-dimensional wavenumber versus non-dimensional
wave velocity. In the following, dispersion information is
presented in terms of time and frequency, a representation
that results from applying wave transform to experimental The displacement components in the cylindrical coordinate
waveform processing. The dispersion information presented system are designated as 17x, t70, and ~z, whose dependences
in Fig. 1 of a wave acquired in a steel specimen shows the first on the z-coordinate normal to the middle surface are given
three modes $1, $2, and $3, where each mode is associated by
with a particular type of motion. For example, mode Sl is the
lowest flexural mode. The non-dispersive $2 mode is asso- ux(x, O, Z, t) = u(x, O, t) q- Zq)x(X, O, t)
ciated with the purely torsional motion known as the lower
torsional mode, or the first Lobar mode. $3 corresponds to (tO(X, O, Z, t) = v(x, O, t) d- Z~oO(x, O, t) (1)
the second flexural mode. (tz(X, O, Z, t) = w(x, O, t)
The process of obtaining the dispersion curves is based
on elastic wave motion and energy methods. Consider the where t is time, u, v, and w are the displacement components
differential element depicted in the reference system in Fig. 2. of a particle on the middle surface, z = 0, and 99.~and ~00 are

428 9 Vol. 45, No. 5, October 2005 9 2005 Society for Experimental Mechanics
the angles of rotation of the normal to the middle surface in
the x - z and x-O planes, respectively. Note that in eq (1) ~0x
and ~00 represent the axial and circumferential shear effects.
Integration of the strain energy density expression across the
shell thickness would then lead to the shell stress equations
of motion.
Consider the solutions for wave propagation in the follow-
ing form

u(x, O, t) = U e i(mt-(xx) cosn0

~Ox(X, O, t) = qJ e i(mt-ax) cosn0

v(x, 0, t) = V e i(mt-ax) cosn0 (2)
r O, t) = qb el(~176 cosn0
w(x, 0, t) = W e i(mt-c~x) cosn0

where n = 0, 1, 2 . . . is an integer indicating the number of

waves traveling circumferentially, m is the circular frequency,
and c~ is the wavenumber defined as
m 2rt
Cp L

Substituting eqs (1) and (2) into in the equations of motion

(not shown), a homogeneous system of linear equations can
be found in the form of the frequency-equation determinant:

IF] = O. (3)

The experimental dispersion curves are plotted as time versus

frequency at a single detection point. Figure 3 shows the com-
parison between theoretical dispersion curves and those plot-
ted using experimental data. It can be seen that, for relative Fig. 3--Comparison of theory (top) to experimental data
low frequencies, the experimental Gabor wavelet plots corre- (bottom)
spond well in trend and shape to the theoretical values. In the
experimental case, the additional bands are not extra modes,
but rather they are the result of using a high value of the
time-frequency resolution parameter in the Gabor wavelet
function in order to be consistent with the zero-mean value
character of the wavelet itself. There is also a discrepancy in
the arrival time of the experimental plot compared with the
theory. This could be the result of imprecise measurement of
the propagation path. As shown in Fig. 4, the discrepancy is
more evident when both plots are superimposed.
Before calculating the roots of the characteristic eq (3),
a change of variables is needed. The change is performed
to have the dispersion be displayed as function of time, t,
and frequency, m. In the following, wave velocity, s, and
wavenumber, ~, are expressed in time and frequency as

mh . / 2 p ( 1 + v) ~oth
s= ~SV E and 8-- (4)
2~xs
with s being the travel distance of the propagating wave from
the excitation point to the detection point. Details of the pro-
cess of transforming dispersion curves and obtaining disper-
sion information from experimental data using Gabor wavelet
transform can be found in Baltazar et al. 21 Fig. 4~Comparison of theory (lines) to experimental data
Once the theoretical dispersion curves are transformed, (bands)
it is possible to compare them directly to the wavelet coeffi-
cients resulted from processing experimental waveform. Note
that Gabor wavelet transform resolves a time waveform into

9 2005 Society for Experimental Mechanics Experimental Mechanics 9 429

its joint time-frequency domains. The characteristic eq (3)
is obtained by calculating the determinant of the frequency
equation. There are five roots, thus five possible modes ex-
ist for each case. The wave motion corresponding to n = 0
is one of axisymmetry and assumes no waves propagating
circumferentially. When n = 1, the case is one of flexural
motion without circumferentially propagating waves.
One of the abilities of the M - H theory is that it can be
applied to a wide range of hollow cylinders. Tubulars as thin
as m < 1/10 and as thick as m > 7/10 were considered
by Mirsky and Herrmann. 3,19,20 Additionally, the M - H the-
ory can include the special limit cases when m = 0 and when
m --+ cx~.The former case corresponds to a flat plate in which
the theory reduces to the classical plate theory discussed by
Mindlin. 22 The latter limit case when m --+ cx~ corresponds
to a solid cylindrical bar.

Experimental Setup
A typical TAP-NDE was employed for the study. As shown
in the schematics in Fig. 5, the main components of the sys-
tem include a generation subsystem consisting of an Nd:YAG
laser and focusing optics, a fiber-tip interferometer (FTI) de-
tection subsystem powered by an HeNe laser, a photode- Fig. 5--Schematic diagram of a typical TAP-NDE system
tector, an oscilloscope, and a PC-based signal acquisition-
processing subsystem.
The physical setup in Fig. 6 shows that it is possible to
have a dual-FTI setup. The additional FTI seen in the fig-
ure served as a redundancy for validation purpose. 1 is the
focal lens, 2 are the positioning stages, 3 and 4 are FTI 1
and FTI 2, respectively, and 5 is a steel test specimen. Two
fiber-optic cables, labeled 6, are connected to their respective
FBT couplers (not shown), which in turn are attached to the
photodetectors. Acquired waveforms are registered as inter-
ferometric beams by the photodetectors and then output to
the data acquisition-processing unit for feature extraction.
Four specimens with different thickness to mean radius ra-
tios were tested. The distance from excitation point to detec-
tion point was 10 mm for all cases. For other parameters and
configurational details, refer to Baltazar et al.21. As also noted
in Baltazar et al., 21'23 the initiated ultrasonic waves propagat-
ing on a tubular surface can be surface waves if the specimen
is relatively thick, or plate (guided) waves if the specimen is
relatively thin. When analyzing steel pipes of several thick- Fig. 6--Actual experimental setup with dual FTI
nesses, some generated ultrasonic waves display behaviors
that are characteristic of both surface and guided waves in dif-
ferent ranges of frequencies. Thus, of certain cylindrical con-
figuration, waves propagating in hollowed specimens could
have transition characteristics that are partially dispersive and Experimental results are presented as dispersion in terms
partially non-dispersive. of time versus frequency for each case. It can be seen in Fig. 7
that, as m is increased, wave dispersion transition is from a
Results plate wave characteristic that is of low-frequency content to
that of a surface wave represented by higher-frequency con-
After validating the procedures for transforming theoreti- tent. The transition effect, noted as a band of frequencies in
cal dispersion curves through a comparison with the wavelet which the dispersion is no longer of pure plate wave or sur-
time-frequency plots, it was possible to establish a correla- face wave characteristics, is observed in each stage. It should
tion between theory and experimental results. In conjunction be noted that the slight inconsistency in the time of arrival at
with information available from past experiments in which around 3 ~ts is due to the measurement errors for lifting the
pipes of different curvatures were considered, it was possible propagation length.
to establish a guideline for performing testing on specimens For the specimen with m = 0.1575, the dispersion demon-
of different thickness to mean radius (m) ratios. The four strates a guided wave attribute at relative low frequencies at
specimens considered herein have values of m = 0.1575, 0.4 MHz. From Fig. 7(a), a transition covering initially a
0.1811, 0.1871, and 0.2177, respectively. frequency spectrum at 0.4-0.6 MHz is seen to progressively

430 9 VoL 45, No. 5, October 2005 9 2005 Society for Experimental Mechanics
Fig. 7--Dispersion spectrum for four cases of thickness to medium radius ratio (m = h/R): (a) m = 0.1575, (b) m = 0.1811, (c)
m = 0.1871, and (d) m = 0.2177

change to a more prominent surface wave characteristic pat-

tern at 0.6-1.0 MHz. There are also other frequency compo-
nents that arrive later in time. These are considered noise and
are not taken into account for the transition effect. The disper-
sion associated with the second specimen with m = 0.1811
shows a plate wave attribute at relative low frequencies at
approximately 0.62 MHz. A transition covering frequencies
between 0.55 and 0.8 MHz is seen to progressively change
to a surface wave characteristic at 0.8-l.75 MHz. Similar
observations can also be made with the third and fourth spec-
imens. A summary of results is shown in Table 1. Dispersion
contours of the four cases displayed in Fig. 8 show that the
transition characteristics fall below the 1 MHz range.

Conclusions
The experimental investigation was carried out using the
Fig. 8 - - V i e w of transition ranges for four cases
TAP-NDE system for the non-contact and non-invasive gen-
eration and detection of ultrasonic waves in tubular con-
figurations of several different thicknesses to mean radius
ratios. By using a Gabor wavelet transform based feature
information extraction scheme, it was possible to establish
wave dispersion with the deployment of only one FTI sen- that time-frequency dispersion better represents the transi-
sor. Features characteristic of both surface and plate waves, tion effect. Although transition effects were observed in all
thus referred to as the transition waves, were studied using pipe specimens considered in the study, it is concluded that
time-frequency dispersion curves for pipes of four different transition become non-negligibly prominent when the tubular
ratios of thickness-to-mean radius. It has been demonstrated thickness-to-mean radius ratio is close to 0.18.

9 2005 Society for Experimental Mechanics Experimental Mechanics 9 431

TABLE 1 - - F R E Q U E N C Y CHARACTERISTICS (MHz /
Specimen M = h/R Plate wave Transition Surface wave
1 0.1575 Below 0.4 0.4-0.6 0.6-1
2 0.1811 Below 0.62 0.62-0.8 0.8-1.75
3 0.1871 Below 0.55 0.55-0.8 0.8-1.95
4 0.2177 Below 0.65 0.65-0.9 0.9 and above

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