Nonlinear ultrasound techniques have shown greater sensitivity to microcracks and they can be used to detect structural damages at their early stages. However, there is still a lack of numerical models available in commercial finite element analysis (FEA) tools that are able to simulate the interaction of elastic waves with the materials nonlinear behaviour. In this study, a nonlinear constitutive material model was developed to predict the structural response under continuous harmonic excitation of a fatigued isotropic sample that showed anharmonic effects. Particularly, by means of Landau's theory and Kelvin tensorial representation, this model provided an understanding of the elastic nonlinear phenomena such as the second harmonic generation in three-dimensional solid media. The numerical scheme was implemented and evaluated using a commercially available FEA software LS-DYNA, and it showed a good numerical characterisation of the second harmonic amplitude generated by the damaged region known as the nonlinear response area (NRA). Since this process requires only the experimental second-order nonlinear parameter and rough damage size estimation as an input, it does not need any baseline testing with the undamaged structure or any dynamic modelling of the fatigue crack growth. To validate this numerical model, the second-order nonlinear parameter was experimentally evaluated at various points over the fatigue life of an Aluminium (AA6082-T6) coupon and the crack propagation was measured using an optical microscope. A good correlation was achieved between the experimental set-up and the nonlinear constitutive model.

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Traditional non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and structural health monitoring (SHM) systems are used to analyse that a structure is free of any harmful damage. However, these techniques still lack sensitivity to detect the presence of material micro-flaws in the form of fatigue damage and often require timeconsuming procedures and expensive equipment. This research work presents a novel "nonlinear ultrasonic stimulated thermography" (NUST) method able to overcome some of the limitations of traditional linear ultrasonic/thermography NDE-SHM systems and to provide a reliable, rapid and cost effective estimation of fatigue damage in isotropic materials. Such a hybrid imaging approach combines the high sensitivity of nonlinear acoustic/ultrasonic techniques to detect micro-damage, with local defect frequency selection and infrared imaging. When exciting structures with an optimised frequency, nonlinear elastic waves are observed and higher frictional work at the fatigue damaged area is generated due to clapping and rubbing of the crack faces. This results in heat at cracked location that can be measured using an infrared camera. A Laser Vibrometer (LV) was used to evaluate the extent that individual frequency components contribute to the heating of the damage region by quantifying the outof-plane velocity associated with the fundamental and second order harmonic responses. It was experimentally demonstrated the relationship between a nonlinear ultrasound parameter (βratio) of the material nonlinear response to the actual temperature rises near the crack. These results demonstrated that heat generation at damaged regions could be amplified by exciting at frequencies that provide nonlinear responses, thus improving the imaging of material damage and the reliability of NUST in a quick and reproducible manner.

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Applying highly accurate clamp loads in bolted joints during assembly and inspections is essential for estimation of the integrity of a joint and reduction of disastrous failures. Non-destructive post-assembly and in-service inspections of joint integrity are vital and significantly reduce maintenance and associated repair costs. Therefore, a bolt control technology able to provide precise direct measurement of bolt loosening state during assembly and in-service is needed. This work proposes an in situ structural health monitoring approach based on the evaluation of linear and nonlinear modulated acoustic moments for the assessment of the loosened state of bolts in a multi-bolted structure. Linear and nonlinear ultrasound methods’ detection accuracy and robustness can be highly dependent on correct frequency selection. The structural health monitoring method suggested uses material resonance and a frequency sweep methodology coupled with a cross-correlation method which identifies significant frequency pairs or higher harmonics used to determine bolt loosening. The proposed approach was tested and successfully validated on three different bolted structures showing that loosening of the structure can be identified accurately with a limited number of transducers. The solution provides a qualitative solution, which identifies degradation in the torque of a bolted structure; furthermore, the developed structural health monitoring method has the potential to become an automatic tool for monitoring the loosened state of bolts in critical complex structural components.