Broad-angle negative reflection and focusing of elastic waves from a plate edge

Abstract

Guided elastic waves in plates, or Lamb waves, generally undergo reflection and mode conversion upon encountering a free edge. In the case where a backward-propagating Lamb wave is mode-converted to a forward-propagating wave or vice versa, the mode-converted wave is reflected on the same side of the surface normal as the incident wave. In this paper, we study such negative reflection and show that this effect can be achieved over a broad angular range at a simple plate edge. We demonstrate, through both numerical and experimental approaches, that a plate edge can act as a lens and focus a mode-converted Lamb wave field. Furthermore, we show that as the wave vectors of the incident and mode-converted Lamb waves approach each other, the mode-converted field nearly retraces the incident field. We propose that broad-angle negative reflection may find application in the nondestructive testing of structures supporting guided waves and in the development of new acoustic devices including resonators, lenses, and filters.