Elastic guided waves in plates with surface roughness. II. Experiments

In this artice are reported fundamental experimental measurements on guided waves in plates with surface roughness; the experimental data are critically compared to theoretical calculations presented in Part I. All experiments, in either immersion or contact coupling mode, are modeled by the theory developed in I that exploits the phase-screen approximation. In this theory the effect of the rough surface on the received signal, on a local scale, is assumed to be restricted to the signal phase. The comparisons between experiment and predictions show good agreement in most regimes, despite the rather simplifying approximations contained in the calculation. The model is shown to fail only when the guided wave vector is close to a branch point, that is when the guided wave phase velocity approaches the compressional or shear wavespeeds of the plate. Near these values the internal partial waves comprising the guided wave strike the surfaces at grazing incidence or are evanescent, and a simple phase-screen mode...