Propagation Energy Distribution of PZT-based Ultrasonic Guided Waves in Laminated Pipeline

Ultrasonic guided waves based on piezoelectric transducers have played an important role in the health monitoring of pipeline structures. The key point of the technology is propagation rules of guided waves. To investigate energy distribution and propagation behaviors of ultrasonic guided waves affected by the structure of outer protection layer, finite element method (FEM) is utilized to analyze triple-layered laminated pipeline by using ABAQUS, emphasizing on energy density distribution of guided waves in the layers at various cross-sections and longitudinal energy attenuation along the pipeline. To verify the efficiency of the results of FE analysis, an experiment under the identical condition with the numerical simulation is performed. The numerical simulation and the validation experiment results showed that the energy distribution of ultrasonic guided waves and wave propagation are influenced at a certain extent by the coating of pipeline.