Evaluation of interlayer interfacial stiffness and layer wave velocity of multilayered structures by ultrasonic spectroscopy.

An ultrasonic evaluation procedure for the interlayer interfacial normal stiffness and the intralayer longitudinal wave velocity of multilayered plate-like structures is proposed. Based on the characteristics of the amplitude reflection spectrum of ultrasonic wave at normal incidence to a layered structure with spring-type interlayer interfaces, it is shown that the interfacial normal stiffness and the longitudinal wave velocity in the layers can be simultaneously evaluated from the frequencies of local maxima and minima of the spectrum provided that all interfaces and layers have the same properties. The effectiveness of the proposed procedure is investigated from the perspective of the sensitivity of local extremal frequencies of the reflection spectrum. The feasibility of the proposed procedure is also investigated when the stiffness of each interface is subjected to small random fluctuations about a certain average value. The proposed procedure is applied to a 16-layered cross-ply carbon-fiber-reinforced composite laminate. The normal stiffness of resin-rich interfaces and the longitudinal wave velocity of plies in the thickness direction evaluated from the experimental reflection spectrum are shown to be consistent with simple theoretical estimations.