A new stress measurement strategy based on time-frequency characteristics of Lamb waves

Existing stress evaluation methods based on the Lamb waves mainly use the time of flight (TOF) or velocity as the means of stress measurement. However, these two features used for stress measurement are sometimes insensitive to stress changes. Therefore, it is essential to explore other features that are potentially more sensitive to stress changes. The time–frequency spectrums of signals containing stress information have not yet been fully studied for stress evaluation. This paper proposes a uniaxial stress measurement method based on two time–frequency characteristics of Lamb waves, i.e., the slope of time–frequency spectrum distribution (TFSD) and pulse width impact factor. Theoretical expressions of the slope of TFSD are derived. The impacts of excitation signal parameters (i.e., bandwidth and center frequency) and noise on two time–frequency characteristics were discussed. Then, the fitting results of the finite element simulation are consistent with the results predicted by theory. To experimentally validate the proposed theory, aluminum plate specimens with two different types of adhesives were used for the experiment. According to the experimental stress measurement expression, three uniaxial tensile tests in the range of 35–95 MPa were conducted on the identical batch of specimens. The maximum standard deviation of multiple measured stress based on pulse width impact factor is 3.76433 MPa, demonstrating excellent measurement stability. The maximum standard deviation of multiple measured stress based on the slope of TFSD is 9.12492 MPa. It shows that the proposed methodology is a promising alternative for stress measurement.