Near Field Enhancements from Angled Surface Defects; A Comparison of Scanning Laser Source and Scanning Laser Detection Techniques

Enhancement of the Rayleigh wave signal amplitude at a surface defect, due to interference of incident, reflected and mode converted waves, has been reported by several authors, and it has been suggested that this could be used as a fingerprint of the presence of such cracking. The scanning laser line source technique in particular, where signal amplitude is enhanced as the laser generating the Rayleigh waves is in the region of a surface defect, has been reported as a suitable detection tool. However, the previous work has looked primarily at defects propagating normal to the surface, which may not always be a suitable approximation, and the enhancement measured when a detection laser rather than a generation laser is near a crack may, in some cases, be more significant. This work explores near field effects for both laser generation and laser detection points near a defect, and compares the enhancements for defects which are angled relative to the surface. We use a combination of finite element method models and experimental results, and probe enhancements of both the amplitude and frequency signals, and show that scanning the detection point may be a better method for locating surface defects if they are inclined at an angle to the surface.