To develop an effective baseline free damage detection strategy using the time reversal process (TRP) of Lamb waves in thin walled structures, it is essential to develop a good understanding of the effect of adhesive layer between the transducers and the host structure. In this paper, the effect of transducer-plate bonding on the time reversibility of Lamb waves in isotropic plates is studied using finite element (FE) simulations as well as experiments. The results show that contrary to the general expectations, the quality of reconstruction of the input signal after the TRP may increase with the increase in the adhesive layer thickness at certain frequency ranges. The effect of tone burst count of the excitation signal on the time reversibility is also studied numerically and experimentally.
doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/230