GUIDED WAVES WITH AND WITHOUT DISPERSION

In the application of elastic waves of ultrasonic frequencies for nondestructive evaluations of industrial components and welded structures various types of waves like Rayleigh waves, Surface waves, Longitudinal body waves, Shear body waves, and Lamb waves are used to detect defects in the objects under investigation. In many cases these waves travel in bounded media and are affected by boundaries. Because they are guided by boundaries of objects under investigation, they are called sometimes guided waves or waveguides at other times. Some of these guided waves are dispersive in character while others are nondispersive. Efforts are made here to distinguish between guided waves with dispersion and those without dispersion.