Experimental study on the surface stress measurement with Rayleigh wave detection technique

In this paper, experimental study on the surface stress measurement of a metallic material based on the Rayleigh wave acoustoelastic theory is introduced. A Rayleigh wave acoustoelastic formula deduced by Husson is optimized to estimate the surface stress of the material. Two micro Rayleigh wave transducers with 5 MHz frequency one of which is used for acoustic pulse emitter and another for receiver are used to determine the time of flight of Rayleigh wave propagating in a certain distance along the surface of the material. The difference in time of flight between two ultrasonic signals obtained in stressed and unstressed object surface is identified by the digital correlation method. A specimen made of Q235 steel and applied with tensile load is used for calibration to obtain the acoustoelastic coefficients of Q235 steel. Furthermore, some principal factors which may result in errors in the experiment are discussed and some measurements are proposed to prevent these errors. Finally the surface stress of a cantilever beam is detected by the Rayleigh wave acoustoelastic technique and the experimental result is well compared with the theoretical value.