Proc. Natl. Sci. Counc.

ROC(A)
Vol. 23, No. 6, 1999. pp. 703-715

(Invited Review Paper)

Elastic Wave Propagation and Nondestructive

Evaluation of Materials
T SUNG -TSONG WU

Institute of Applied Mechanics

National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.

(Received April 13, 1999; Accepted June 7, 1999)

ABSTRACT

The use of elastic waves to measure elastic properties as well as flaws in solid specimens has received
much attention, and many important applications have been developed recently. This paper summarizes
some of the recent results in applying elastic waves to nondestructive evaluation (NDE) of isotropic as
well as anisotropic materials. This paper is divided into four parts, the first part describes the theoretical
background of surface waves in an anisotropic layered medium, where sextic formalism of surface waves
is adopted. The second part introduces numerical simulations of 2-D and 3-D transient elastic waves
propagating in plate structures that contain cracks and/or flaws. In the third part, some of the applications
of laser generated surface waves used to determine anisotropic elastic constants and bonding conditions
in layered media are described. In the last part, a newly developed method for determining concrete elastic
constants and recently developed methods for detection of surface breaking cracks in concrete using
transient elastic waves are described.

Key Words: elastic wave, nondestructive evaluation, anisotropy, crack, concrete

I. Introduction In the development of an efficient elastic wave

The use of elastic waves to measure elastic prop-
erties as well as flaws of solid specimens has received
interest; for example, in the use of elastic waves in
nondestructive evaluation of concrete structures, in the
use of laser generated ultrasonic waves in the deter-
mination of anisotropic elastic constants of composite
materials and in the recovery of the bonding properties
and/or thickness of bonded structures. In the above
applications, the analyses can generally be divided into
three parts: forward simulation of elastic wave
propagation, elastic wave measurement and inverse
analysis (or signal processing). Forward simulation of
elastic waves includes finding various analytical so-
lutions (exact or approximated) of some simple geom-
etry structures and numerical solutions using finite
difference, finite element or boundary element methods.
Elastic wave measurement involves using various wave
sources (steel ball impact, pencil break, laser heating
etc.) and receivers (piezo-ceramics sensors, laser in-
terferometry etc.). Inverse analysis or signal analysis
of elastic waves involves using efficient inverse algo-
rithms, imaging processing, neural networks etc.
based nondestructive evaluation (NDE) method, the
first step is understanding the propagation character-
istics of elastic waves. In the literature, there exist
many theoretical analyses of transient elastic wave
propagation in simple structures which are necessary
to understand elastic wave physics. However, to fur-
ther study waves diffracted from an arbitrary obstacle,
numerical techniques are of great importance. In this
paper, some of the recent results obtained in applying
surface wave dispersion and transient elastic waves to
the measurement of the elastic properties of anisotropic
layered media as well as in-situ concrete crack and
elastic constants are summarized. The sextic formal-
ism of surface waves in anisotropic multi-layer media
and the numerical solution of transient elastic wave
propagation are also introduced.
II. Surface Waves in Anisotropic
Solids
1. Anisotropic Half Space
The early studies on the propagation of elastic

− 703 −
 T.T. Wu
Fig. 1. The variation of the surface wave velocity along different
propagation directions on the (001)-plane.
surface waves in crystals can be found in a review
article by Farnell (1970). Basically, most of the studies
on anisotropic surface wave problems adopted the for-
mulation utilized by Synge (1957); therefore, iterations
between the secular equations of the equations of motion
and the complex surface boundary determinants were
needed to determine the surface wave velocity. A
formal mathematical proof for the existence of surface
waves in all directions in an anisotropic material was
given by Barnett and Lothe (1974). Their proof was
based upon the works of Stroh (1962) in the develop-
ment of the theory of dislocations. In the Stroh
formalism, the material properties and elastic symme-
tries are contained in the so-called fundamental elas-
ticity tensor (Chadwick and Smith, 1977). The solution
of a particular problem can be expressed in terms of
the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a six-dimensional
tensor of rank two (Lothe and Barnett, 1976). Barnett,
Lothe and their coworkers (Barnett et al., 1973a,1973b)
extended the Stroh formalism to the integral formalism.
They showed that the surface wave velocity in an
anisotropic material can be determined by vanishing
the determinant of a real symmetric 2×2 matrix without
solving the eigenvalue problem encountered in the
Stroh formalism.
Below is an example of anisotropic surface wave
velocities calculated using the Stroh-Barnett’s integral
formalism. The three nonvanishing elastic constants
of the single Silicon crystal are C 11 =165.7 GPa, C12 =
63.9 GPa and C44=79.56 GPa, and the density is 2332
Kg/m3. The propagation of surface waves on the (001)
and (110) surfaces was considered.
− 704 −
Figure 1 shows the variation in surface wave
velocity along different propagation directions on the
(001)-plane. We note that for propagation along the
[110] direction, the surface wave velocity is equal to
the limiting velocity, and this is the so-called excep-
tional surface wave velocity.
2. Layered Anisotropic Half Space
Theoretical analyses of the propagation of surface
acoustic waves in layered media have been reported
in the literature. Ewing et al. (1957) reviewed the early
analyses of the dispersion of surface waves in an iso-
tropic layered medium. In the last decade, the appli-
cations of acoustic microscopy and fiber reinforced
composites have initiated interest in studying wave
propagation in layered isotropic or anisotropic media
(Kundu and Mal, 1986; Nayfeh and Taylor, 1988;
Bouden and Datta, 1990). Experimental and inverse
analyses of surface waves in an anisotropic medium
or a layered medium have also been reported (Chai and
Wu, 1994; Wu and Liu, 1999).
In addition to the conventional formulation of
surface wave propagation in layered media (Ewing et
al., 1957), the sextic formalism of Stroh (1962) has
recently been employed. In the sextic formalism, the
equations of motion and the constitutive equations are
combined and arranged to form a first-order matrix
differential equation. The displacement and the trac-
tion acting across the planes normal to the layering
surfaces are grouped into a six-dimensional vector. In
each layer, the solution of the ordinary differentiated
equations forms a transfer matrix that can be utilized
to map the variables from one surface to the next
layering surface. With this formulation, the rank of
the matrix encountered in the computation is indepen-
dent of the number of layers. The following example
is calculated using the sextic formalism. Shown in Fig.
2 is the dispersion of the Rayleigh wave and Love wave
in a single layered anisotropic half space. The aniso-
tropic half space is a single crystal Silicon with the
(001) surface normal, and the top layer is SiO2 . The
propagation direction is along the [100] direction.
3. Layered Anisotropic Half Space Loaded with
Viscous Liquid
Recently, the development of micro-acoustic wave
sensors in biosensing (Andle and Vetelino, 1994) has
created the need for further investigation into surface
wave propagation in a fluid loaded layered medium.
Kim (1992) investigated the effect of an adjacent viscous
fluid on the propagation of Love waves in a layered
half space medium. His results include an exact so-
 Elastic Wave and NDE of Materials

15° away from the [100] axis.

III. Numerical Simulation of Transient

Elastic Waves
1. Finite Difference Formulations

For a body with dynamic disturbance propagating

in a three dimensional space, the stress equations of
motion can be written in the Voigt’s form as

∂v i
ρ = T ij, j + f i , (1)
∂t

where ρ is the mass density, f i is the body force per

unit mass, T ij represents the stress components, v i
represents the particle velocities and i,j=1, 2, 3. For
a linear elastic isotropic medium, the Hooke’s law
Fig. 2. The dispersion of the Rayleigh wave and Love wave in a reads as
single layered anisotropic half space.
∂T ij
= λv k, k δ ij + µ(v i, j + v j, i ) , (2)
∂t
lution and an asymptotic solution for the velocity and
attenuation, which are expressed in terms of the vis- where λ and µ are the Lamè constants.
cosity and density of the viscous fluid. Zhu and Wu To study elastic wave propagation in a general two
(1995) presented a theory for the propagation of Lamb or three-dimensional heterogeneous medium, the finite
waves in a plate bordered by a viscous liquid. Their difference scheme with staggered grids can be adopted
results also include numerical solutions of the Lamb (Virieux, 1986). In the heterogeneous formulation,
wave dispersion related to sensing applications. A instead of treating the internal interfaces using explicit
detailed experimental study on a Love wave sensor for interfacial boundary conditions, changing the elastic
biochemical sensing in liquids was reported by Kovacs constants and mass density can be adopted. The finite
et al. (1994). They showed that, for small viscosity, difference formulae for the free surface grids are derived
the interaction of an acoustic Love wave with a viscous
liquid can be described by a Newtonian liquid model.
The substrates (layered half space) of the above men-
tioned investigations are assumed to be isotropic.
However, anisotropic layered substrates may appear in
many practical applications. Recently, Wu and Wu 1
studied the propagation of Rayleigh and Love waves
in a viscous loaded anisotropic layered half space
medium. The sextic formalism of Stroh (Stroh, 1962;
Braga, 1990) was extended to obtain the viscous liquid
effect on the dispersion relation of surface waves. The
dispersion relation was expressed in terms of the acoustic
impedance of the anisotropic substrate and the viscous
liquid.
In the following example, the propagation of
surface waves in an anisotropic single-layered half
space loaded with a viscous liquid is considered. (The
anisotropic half space is silicon, and the surface layer
is SiO 2 , 5 µ m in thickness.) Figure 3 shows the cal-
culated results for the fundamental Rayleigh wave Fig. 3. The phase velocity of surface waves in a anisotropic single-
propagating on the [001] surface along the direction layered half space loaded with a viscous liquid.

1
Wu, T. T. and T. Y. Wu, “Surface waves in coated anisotropic medium loaded with viscous liquid.” Submitted.

− 705 −
 T.T. Wu

opening.
Shown in Fig. 5(a)-(c) are snapshots (t=6, 12, 18
µ s) of diffracted wave fields for the case of an alumi-
num plate with a circular hole located at mid-depth.
The diameter of the hole is 2 cm. In Fig. 5(a) (t=6
µs), one can find that the P wave front is just approach-
ing the top edge of the hole. In Fig. 5(b) (t=12 µ s),
(a)
the P wave front has passed the hole, and the S-wave-
front is at the top of the hole. In addition, scattering
of the P wave by the hole is observed clearly. In Fig.
5(c) (t=18 µ s), a creeping wave has formed and has
crept down along the boundary of the hole with a certain
amount of energy.
We note that the complicated elastic wave fields
scattered by an obstacle in a structure can be observed
(b) more clearly by means of numerical simulated snapshots.
Snapshots of scattered wave fields can be processed
to obtain a dynamic image of the scattered wave field
to observe the time evolution of the various elastic
wave modes.

3. Numerical Simulation of 3-D Diffracted

Waves
(c)
In this subsection, we will discuss the numerical
Fig. 4. Snapshots of the diffracted wave fields generated by a normal
surface breaking crack.

based on the method of a fictitious line (Alterman and

Karal, 1968). For the details of the finite difference
formulation of 2-D and 3-D elastic wave propagation
problems, the readers is referred to the works of Virieux
(1986), Wu and Gong (1993), Wu and Fang (1997b)
and Fang and Wu (1997).
(a)
2. Numerical Simulation of 2-D Diffracted
Waves

Shown in Fig. 4(a)-(c) are snapshots (t=6, 12, 18

µ s) of diffracted wave fields induced by a steel ball
drop in an aluminum plate which contains a normal
surface-breaking crack. The depths of the crack and
the source to crack opening distances are the same and
(b)
are equal to 2 cm, and the height of the plate is 8 cm.
In Fig. 4(a) (t=6 µs), the Rayleigh surface waves propa-
gating in both directions can be identified clearly while
the P wave-front has crept around the crack tip. In Fig.
4(b) (t=12 µs), the Rayleigh surface wave which propa-
gates toward the crack has crept down the crack. The
Rayleigh surface wave reflected from the corner of the
top of the crack can also be observed. In Fig. 4(c) (t=18
µs), the Rayleigh wave has crept around the crack tip, (c)
and the creeping P and S waves have carried wave Fig. 5. Snapshots of the diffracted wave fields generated by a cir-
energy to the shadow zone located across the surface cular hole.

− 706 −
 Elastic Wave and NDE of Materials

signal is characterized by the black and white contrast,

i.e., the bigger the amplitude, the darker the image; the
smaller the amplitude, the brighter the image. From
the B-scan images, one can observe the differences of
the crack cross sections easily.

IV. Nondestructive Evaluation of

Materials Using Laser Generated
Surface Waves
Due to its noncontact feature and ability to gen-
erate broadband signals, laser ultrasonics has demon-
strated great potential in NDE applications (Scruby and
Drain, 1990). Laser generated ultrasonic waves have
been applied to investigate the Lamb wave propagation
phenomena in thin plates (Hutchins et al., 1989;
Dewhurst et al., 1987; Nakano and Nagai, 1991) and
to obtain scan images of thin graphite/epoxy laminates
and silicon wafer (Veidt and Sachse, 1994). Laser
Fig. 6. The diffracted waves received at different receiver distances
b=2, 4, 6, 8 cm. [Adopted from Wu and Fang (1997b)]

simulation of 3-D diffracted waves induced by surface-

breaking cracks in concrete. Figure 6 shows that the
depth of the crack is d, and that the distances from the
source and the receiver to the surface opening of the
crack are “a” and “b”, respectively. Figure 6 also
shows the diffracted waves received at different re-
ceiver distances of b=2, 4, 6, 8 cm. The longitudinal
wave and the transverse wave velocities of the concrete
are assumed to be 4200 m/s and 2450 m/s, respectively.
The source distance a=3 cm, the depth of the crack d=6
cm and the source time function is a half sin 3/2 t with
a contact duration equal to 20 µs. From Fig. 6, we note
that the amplitude of the diffracted wave decays with Fig. 7. The computed B-scan image of a normal surface breaking
the receiver distance; in addition, the initial slope of crack with a rectangular cross section. [Adopted from Wu
the diffracted wave-front is also dependent on the and Fang (1997b)]
receiver distance. It has been shown that the phase
changes of the initial signal are dependent on the relative
angle formed between the lines of the source to crack
tip and the receiver to crack tip (Wu et al., 1995a).
The 3-D finite difference formulation can also be
utilized to simulate elastic wave diffraction due to
cracks with different cross sections. Shown in Fig. 7
is the computed B-scan image of a normal surface
breaking crack with a rectangular cross section. The
cross section of the rectangular crack is 20 cm in length
and 5 cm in depth. Shown in Fig. 8 is the computed
B-scan image of a normal surface breaking crack with
a semi-elliptical cross section. The surface opening
length of the semi-elliptical crack is 20 cm, and the
maximum depth is 5 cm. In the figures, the horizontal Fig. 8. The computed B-scan image of a normal surface breaking
axis is the elapsed time, and the vertical axis is the test crack with a semi-elliptical cross section. [Adopted from Wu
position. In the images, the amplitude of the received and Fang (1997b)]

− 707 −
 T.T. Wu
generated ultrasonic bulk waves has also been used to
determine the elastic constants of anisotropic materials
(Castagnede et al., 1991) and subsurface defects (Cho
et al., 1996).
In recent years, the ultrasonic point-source/point-
receiver (PS/PR) technique has also been shown to be
a convenient method for measuring group velocities
(Scruby, 1989; Kim et al., 1993). The acoustic waves
generated by a pulsed laser beam or a breaking capillary
propagate in all directions and can be detected by small
aperture sensors located on the surface of a specimen
or, if available, by interferometric sensors. The po-
sitions of the source and receiver determine the direc-
tion of the measured group velocities (Every and Sachse,
1990; Doyle and Scala, 1991; Kim and Achenbach,
1992).
1. Determination of Anisotropic Elastic Con-
stants
In the case of isotropic media, only one longitu-
dinal velocity and one shear wave velocity are needed
to determine the Lame’s constants λ and µ . The pro-
cedure for determining the elastic constants of aniso-
tropic solids from measured phase velocities of ultra-
sonic bulk waves has been studied in detail by Every
(1980). However, the wave energy is propagated with
the group velocity, not the phase velocity, and the phase
velocity generally is different from the group velocity
both in direction and magnitude. Every and Sachse
(1990) have used the PS/PR technique to measure the
group velocities of both longitudinal and shear waves,
and furthermore, to determine the elastic constants of
anisotropic solids from measured group velocities. As
pointed out by these authors, the recovery of elastic
constants from phase velocity measurements is straight-
forward and well established, but the same is not true
for group velocities because no general closed-form
expression is available to relate the elastic constants
to the group velocities, and because it is difficult to
distinguish between the slow transverse and fast trans-
verse group velocities in a given direction especially
in folded regions. Doyle and Scala (1991) determined
the elastic constants for composite overlays by employ-
ing a line focused pulsed laser. In their scheme, both
the phase velocities and the skew angles between the
phase and group velocities of longitudinal waves skim-
ming the surface are measured to fit the elastic constants.
The aforementioned studies on determining the elastic
constants of anisotropic solids depended on bulk wave
velocity measurements.
Kim and Achenbach (1992) determined the elastic
constants of coating films by using a line focus scan-
ning acoustic microscope (SAM) to measure the dis-
− 708 −
persion curves of surface waves propagating along
some symmetry axes. Mendik et al. (1992) used the
Brillouin scattering technique and SAM to measure
surface wave velocities and determined the elastic
constants of single crystal nickel. The aforementioned
studies on recovering elastic constants were based on
surface wave phase velocity measurements, and the
conventional surface wave theory developed by Synge
(1957) was utilized in the forward calculations. We
note that when the conventional surface wave theory
is employed to determine the surface wave phase ve-
locities of anisotropic solids, iterations between the
secular equations of the equations of motion and the
complex surface boundary determinants are needed.
Only when the phase velocity of a surface wave is
determined can the group velocity be calculated using
a straightforward substitution. The iteration process
in the aforementioned formulation is complicated, and
there is no priori way to know whether surface wave
solutions exist or not. Therefore, to determine the
elastic constants of an anisotropic solid inversely from
surface wave velocity measurements, an efficient for-
mulation for the forward calculation of the surface
wave velocity is needed.
Instead of using the conventional method, Wu and
Chai (1994) applied the Stroh-Barnett integral formal-
ism to calculate numerically the surface wave phase
and energy velocities in a unidirectional fiber-rein-
forced composite. In their study, experiments were also
conducted to measure the energy velocities of surface
waves using laser-generated ultrasound and the PS/PR
technique. The results showed that the calculated and
experimental slowness curves of the surface wave energy
velocity were in good agreement. In a subsequent
paper, Chai and Wu (1994) further proposed a method
for determining anisotropic elastic constants based on
surface wave energy velocity measurements. The
method has three parts: a laser ultrasound experiment,
forward calculation of the surface wave phase and
energy velocities, and an inversion algorithm for re-
covering the anisotropic elastic constants or the crystal
orientation. Figure 9 shows a polar plot of the measured
laser ultrasonic signals of a composite specimen, and
Fig. 10 shows a comparison between the calculated and
the measured slowness curves of the energy velocities
of the surface waves. Figure 11 shows a polar plot of
the measured signals of a silicon crystal with [111]
orientation. Figure 12 shows a comparison between
the calculated and the measured surface wave velocities.
2. Inverse Determination of the Bonding Layer
Properties
In a recent work by Wu and Chen (1996), the
 Elastic Wave and NDE of Materials

sured dispersion relation of laser generated surface

waves. A computer program for calculating the phase
velocity dispersion of general isotropic and/or aniso-
tropic layered media was utilized to explore the influ-
ence of the epoxy-bonded layer. The dependence of
the error function on the inversion parameters, such as
the thickness, elastic wave velocities and the density
of the bonding layer, was studied first. Inversions of
the bonding layer thickness and the elastic wave ve-
locities of the epoxy layer were then performed. The
results showed that under thickness or elastic property
inversions, only one global minimum existed in each
of the inversion problems. The inversion results dem-

Fig. 9. A polar plot of measured laser ultrasonic signals of a com-

posite specimen. [Adopted from Chai and Wu (1994)]

Fig. 11. A polar plot of the measured laser ultrasonic signals of a

single crystal silicon. [Adopted from Chai and Wu (1996)]

Fig. 10. A comparison between the calculated and the measured

slowness curves of the energy velocities of surface waves.
[Adopted from Chai and Wu (1994)]

dispersion of laser generated surface waves in an epoxy

bonded copper-aluminum layered specimen was studied.
In their study, a laser ultrasonic experiment based on
the PS/PR technique was conducted to measure surface
wave signals in a layered specimen. An Nd:YAG laser
was utilized as a point source, and elastic wave signals
were received using a piezoelectric transducer with a
small acting area. The received wave signals were then
processed in the frequency domain to obtain the dis-
persion relation of the fundamental surface wave mode.
In a subsequent study, Wu and Liu (1999) employed Fig. 12. A comparison between the calculated and the measured
an inversion algorithm to determine the thickness and slowness curves of the energy velocities of surface waves.
the elastic properties of a bonding layer from the mea- [Adopted from Chai and Wu (1994)]

− 709 −
 T.T. Wu
Fig. 13. The measured phase velocity dispersion (stars) and the
calculated phase velocity dispersion (lines) of surface waves.
[Adopted from Wu and Liu (1999)]
onstrated that the thickness or the elastic properties of
the bonding layer could be successfully determined.
Figure 13 shows the measured phase velocity disper-
sion (stars) and the calculated phase velocity dispersion
(lines) of the fundamental mode of surface waves in
a layered specimen with different bonding thicknesses.
3. Detection of Unbond Region in Layered
Structures
In a recent paper, Wu and Chen (1999) utilized
the wavelet transform to study the dispersion of laser
generated surface waves in an epoxy bonded copper-
aluminum layered specimen with and without unbond
areas. Laser ultrasonic experiments based on the PS/
PR technique were undertaken to measure the surface
wave signals in a layered specimen. The wavelet
transform with a Morlet wavelet function was adopted
to analyze the group velocity dispersion of the surface
wave signals. A novel hybrid formula for group velocity
dispersion was proposed for wave propagation across
unbond regions. The results and data obtained were
in good agreement with the calculated and the experi-
mental dispersion curves. The general behavior of the
group velocity dispersion for different measurement
configurations could potentially be utilized to differ-
entiate unbond regions in a layered structure.
Figure 14 shows the theoretical calculations of the
group velocity dispersions for the case where l 1 =35
mm, l 2=70 mm and the bonding thickness varies from
0 to 0.2 H. l 1, l 2 are the propagation distances in the
− 710 −
unbond region and the well bond region, respectively.
The theoretical predictions show that the initial parts
of the dispersion curves are dominated by the funda-
mental mode of the anti-symmetric Lamb wave. The
results shown in Fig. 14 demonstrate that the proposed
group velocity dispersion (with a bonding thickness of
0.1 H) for measurements across the unbond region
agrees well with the measured data (solid circles).
V. Nondestructive Evaluation of
Concrete Structures
The increasing need for monitoring of structure
integrity has motivated intensive research into the de-
velopment of nondestructive testing and evaluation
methods for civil infrastructures, especially for con-
crete structures. Although concrete has been used for
many decades, it still is one of the most widely used
building materials. It can be found in bridges, buildings,
foundations, dams, highways etc. Unlike metallic
materials that are usually assumed to be homogeneous,
concrete consists of cement, sand and aggregates of
different sizes. In addition, many microcracks or voids
in concrete due to the manufacturing process or exter-
nal loading often appear. The above mentioned factors
strongly affect the physical behavior of concrete. For
example, the existence of voids or microcracks in
concrete decreases its compressive strength.
In the case of nondestructive evaluation of con-
crete structures, diffraction and attenuation of elastic
waves in concrete are pronounced. A relatively low
frequency (large wave-length), high energy source is
Fig. 14. The group velocity dispersions for the case where l 1=35
mm and l 2=70 mm. [Adopted from Wu and Chen (1999)]
 Elastic Wave and NDE of Materials
usually adopted to generate elastic waves in concrete.
A successful technique using transient elastic waves
in nondestructive evaluation of concrete structures is
the Impact-Echomethod. This method was developed
and applied by Carino, Sansalone and their coworkers
(Carino et al., 1986; Sansalone and Carino, 1988; Lin
et al., 1990; Carino and Sansalone, 1992) in the de-
tection of flaws or voids in concrete slab and wall struc-
tures. In this method, a steel ball impacting the surface
of a concrete structure is employed to generate elastic
waves. A displacement point receiver is placed next
to the impact source to receive the wave signals. The
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is adopted in the Impact-
Echo method for analysis of the received wave-form.
The periodic reflection of the longitudinal wave be-
tween the top surface and the flaw induces a dominant
peak in the frequency spectrum, and if the correspond-
ing frequency is termed f, then the depth of the flaw,
D, can be determined from the formula D=V L /2f.
The elastodynamic scattering problems have
played an important role in the quantitative nondestruc-
tive evaluation of materials (Achenbach et al., 1980).
Their solutions can be applied to develop inverse scat-
tering techniques for flaw sizing and to model the
reliability of flaw detection. There are analytical,
numerical and experimental studies on transient elastic
wave scattering induced by cracks in metallic struc-
tures (Kundu and Mal, 1981; Scandrett and Achenbach,
1987; Paffenholz et al., 1990; Liu and Datta, 1993; Wu
et al., 1995a). The aforementioned studies showed that
the waves diffracted from surface-breaking cracks offer
sufficient information to measure the crack geometry.
In addition, to extract more information about a crack,
waveform analysis of the measured diffracted wave
was suggested. Wu and Fang (1997b) and Fang and
Wu (1997) successfully applied the inversion tech-
nique to determine the depth of a surface-breaking
crack in concrete. Both normal and oblique surface-
breaking cracks can be detected using their method.
Due to the large aperture of ultrasonic transducers,
ultrasonic measurement of cracks in complicated con-
crete structures is not easy (if indeed possible). The
point source/point receiver method can eliminate this
limitation and can be further utilized to obtain an image
of the crack profile (Lin and Su, 1996; Liu et al., 1996).
In the following, recent results of the measure-
ment of elastic constants and/or the depth of surface-
breaking cracks in concrete structures using transient
elastic waves are summarized.
1. Measurement of the Concrete Elastic Con-
stant
The elastic constants of concrete are usually
− 711 −
determined by using a uniaxial test to determine the
Young’s modulus of a standard cylindrical specimen.
In the nondestructive evaluation of concrete, the ultra-
sonic wave velocity is usually measured and utilized
to predict the strength of the concrete (Ben-Zeitun,
1986). Wu et al. (1995b) proposed a method for de-
termining the dynamic elastic constants of a concrete
specimen using transient elastic waves. In their study,
the Rayleigh wave velocity was determined using the
cross correlation method and the longitudinal wave
velocity, which was determined by measuring longi-
tudinal wave-front arrival. The major limitation in
measuring the longitudinal wave velocity of a concrete
specimen using the aforementioned method is the re-
quirement that a perpendicular corner be present. As
a longitudinal wave travels across a corner, it produces
a larger displacement jump at the point of longitudinal
wave-front arrival when a conical transducer (Proctor,
1982) (vertically polarized and normal to the specimen
surface) is used. Furthermore, in Rayleigh wave ve-
locity measurement, the relatively long distance from
source to receiver hinder the broader application of the
method proposed by Wu et al. (1995b).
In a subsequent paper, Wu and Fang (1997a) re-
moved the limitations of the aforementioned method
(Wu et al., 1995b) and proposed a new method based
on the measurement of horizontally polarized surface
responses. In their new method, the longitudinal wave-
front can be identified directly from the surface response.
In addition, the source to receiver distance employed
to determine the Rayleigh wave velocity is reduced.
In their study, for the purpose of detecting the radial
component of a transient elastic wave signal, two
horizontally polarized conical transducers were
fabricated. The tip of the conical element was about
1.5 mm in diameter. In their experiment, they con-
firmed the correctness of the aforementioned theoreti-
cal analyses. With the Rayleigh wave and the longi-
tudinal wave velocities known, the transverse wave
velocity of the concrete specimen could be obtained
by solving the well-known Rayleigh wave equation.
Figure 15 shows the vertical (solid line) and horizontal
(broken line) components of the surface wave signal
generated by a steel ball impacting the origin of the
half space. The points of arrival of the longitudinal
wave (P), transverse wave (S) and Rayleigh wave (R)
are indicated in Fig. 15. We note that the arrival of
the Rayleigh wave does not coincide exactly with the
first dip of the vertical component (solid line) of the
wave response. The arrival of the longitudinal wave-
front is relatively small when compared with the rest
of the signal. In addition, the transverse wave arrival
is continuous at the vertical displacement signal. In
contrast to the vertical component, the horizontal
 T.T. Wu
Fig. 15. The surface vertical displacement due to a steel ball
impacting the origin of a half space. [Adopted from Wu
and Fang (1996)]
component (broken line) of the longitudinal wave shows
a much clearer displacement jump at the point of wave-
front arrival. Furthermore, the arrival of the Rayleigh
wave induces a sharp corner and can be identified
easily.
The influence of the reinforced bars on the de-
termination of longitudinal wave and Rayleigh wave
velocities in reinforced concrete structures has also
studied by Wu et al. (2000). They utilized the finite
difference method to study elastic wave scattering in
reinforced concrete specimens and, further, to examine
the influence on the elastic wave velocity measure-
ments of transient elastic waves. The parameters that
may affect Rayleigh wave velocity measurements, such
as the cover thickness H and the spacing of the
reinforcement, were considered. Numerical results
showed that the previously proposed method for mea-
suring the elastic wave velocity of plain concrete can
be applied to the case of reinforced concrete with
reasonable accuracy. We note that if the reinforce-
ments in a concrete structure are allocated (for example,
using a rebar locator) first, then the accuracy of the
transient elastic wave method can be increased.
2. Concrete Crack Depth Measurements
Measurement of the size and geometry of a sur-
face-breaking crack is important in evaluating an ex-
isting concrete structure because the existence of sur-
face-breaking cracks in a concrete structure decreases
its durability significantly. The position of a surface-
breaking crack can be easily observed with the naked
eye; however, nondestructive determination of the depth
of the crack is not trivial. The inhomogeneous nature
of concrete structures prevents the utilization of high
frequency ultrasonics. The use of transient elastic
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waves, based on the PS/PR technique, has received
much interest in the field of nondestructive evaluation
of concrete structures. For the detection of cracks in
concrete, Wu and Fang (1996) utilized the phase char-
acteristics of the diffracted wave front to determine the
depth of normal surface-breaking cracks. Measure-
ment of the arrival of the diffracted wave-front was
utilized by Lin and Su (1996) to determine the depth
of a normal surface-breaking crack and by Liu et al.
(1996) to construct images of surface-breaking cracks.
Using the finite difference forward solution and a
nonlinear optimization algorithm, the geometry of a
surface-breaking crack in concrete could be determined
inversely using the measured diffracted wave signal
(Wu and Fang, 1997b; Fang and Wu, 1997). The
inverse results showed that both the depth and the
inclined angle of an oblique surface-breaking crack
could be accurately determined.
The principle of migration in reflection seismol-
ogy can be combined with transient elastic wave mea-
surements to construct the image of a surface-breaking
crack in a concrete structure (Liu et al., 1996). Con-
sider a cracked half-space, and let a signal be emitted
from a source on the surface. The signal is diffracted
by the crack tip and arrives at a receiver which is on
the opposite side of the crack opening. Suppose the
travel time of the diffracted signal is t, and that the
wave velocity is v; then, the travel distance of the signal
is vt. If the diffraction path is unknown, any point in
the medium with the same travel distance is a possible
diffraction point. Therefore, the crack tip should fall
on an ellipse with the source and receiver as its foci.
The exact diffraction point can generally be located by
finding the intersection of two different ellipses (ob-
tained using different source and receiver arrangements).
The inversion of diffracted waves method utilizes
time domain diffracted wave signals to inversely de-
termine the crack depth of a surface breaking crack in
concrete (Wu and Fang, 1997b; Fang and Wu, 1997).
In this method, a steel ball is used to generate the elastic
wave, and a receiver located across the crack receives
the diffracted elastic wave. A three dimensional finite
difference program is used to calculate the forward
solution of the diffracted wave. With the forward
numerical solution found, the initial part of the mea-
sured diffracted wave signal can then be utilized to
recover the crack depth using a stable optimization
algorithm.
VI. Concluding Remarks
It is worth noting that successful development of
an elastic wave based nondestructive evaluation method
for testing materials depends strongly on a solid un-
 Elastic Wave and NDE of Materials
derstanding of wave propagation characteristics. In
addition to theoretical analysis, many elastic wave
related problems require utilization of a general-pur-
pose computer program for calculating elastic wave
propagation in structures with non-simple boundaries
(including layered structures).
As for the application of laser ultrasonics to the
nondestructive evaluation of materials, the recent re-
sults presented in this paper are very encouraging. This
approach can be utilized to determine the elastic con-
stants of anisotropic materials, the bonding properties
of bonded structures etc. In addition, the application
of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices in biosensing
and micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) re-
searches has again triggered the study of surface waves.
For measuring the elastic constants or the unifor-
mity of reinforced concrete structures, the recently
proposed method that is based on the measurement of
skimming longitudinal wave and Rayleigh wave ve-
locities has been shown to be robust for in situ meas-
urement. For detecting the depth of a surface-breaking
crack in concrete, the transient elastic wave methods
described in this paper have also been shown through
both the numerical and experimental analyses to be
feasible.
Acknowledgment
The author thanks the National Science Council of the
R.O.C. for financial support under grants NSC 86-2621-P-002-045
and NSC 86-2212-E-002-078.
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 Elastic Wave and NDE of Materials

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