Full elastic characterization of absorptive rubber using laser excited guided ultrasonic waves

Abstract

Because of the highly damping nature of rubber, it is difficult to characterize its dynamic elastic properties using classical methods. In this paper, an experimental approach employing laser excited guided acoustic waves is proposed to accurately determine the real and imaginary part of the longitudinal and shear elastic modulus of a rubber layer. From the spatiotemporal evolution of a propagating laser excited Lamb wave measured by a laser Doppler vibrometer, which is scanning along a line perpendicular to a line of excitation, the phase velocity dispersion curves in the wave number -frequency domain are obtained. The results are interpreted in the framework of a detailed semianalytical study, analyzing the influence of elastic damping on the Lamb dispersion curves. This analysis is exploited to adequately fit the experimental dispersion curves and thus extract information about the elastic moduli and absorption coefficients of the rubber plate. The results are validated by a pulse-echo measurement, and by guided wave propagation results with the rubber layer connected in a bi-layer plate configuration to non-damping plates.