Analysis of plate wave propagation in anisotropic laminates using a wavelet transform

A new approach is presented for the analysis of transient waves propagating in anisotropic composite laminates. The wavelet transform (WT) using the Gabor wavelet is applied to the time-frequency analysis of dispersive flexural waves in these plates. It can be shown that the peaks of the magnitude of WT in a time-frequency domain is related to the arrival times of the group velocity. Experiments were performed using a lead break as the simulated acoustic emission source on the surface of unidirectional and quasi-isotropic laminates. A method was developed to obtain the group velocity of the flexural mode as a function of frequency. Theoretical predictions were made using the Mindlin plate theory, which includes the effects of shear deformation and rotatory inertia. Our predictions on the dispersion of the flexural mode showed good agreement with the experimental results. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.