Scattering of an Impact Wave by a Crack in a Composite Plate

Ultrasonic waves provide an efficient means of characterizing defects in structures. For this purpose it is necessary to analyze scattering by such defects. However, scattering by crack-like defects in a plate-like structure is a complicated phenomenon and the problem is made more difficult if it is a composite plate. In recent years considerable progress has been made toward understanding wave propagation in anisotropic composite plates [1–5], but not much work has been done on the scattering by cracks in a composite plate. Recently Karim and Kundu [6] and Karim et al. [7] studied scattering of elastic waves in a layered half-space and in layered fiber-reiforced composite plates by interface cracks using a boundary integral formulation. They considered antiplane motions. Although this method can be extended to plane strain motion the computional effort is considerably amplified if one considers a plate geometry. Besides, the method used by these authors is limited to planar defects. For arbitrarily shaped scatterers Sanchez-Sesma [8] reviewed various applicable methods. Most of these numerical methods require considerable computational effort to evaluate the response. Their applicability to layered and anisotropic medium is also limited.