Numerical study on the mechanism of laser-generated Rayleigh waves’ interaction with a surface notch at high temperature

Quantitative characterization of surface notches in metallic materials has long been a hot research topic. In order to quantitatively characterize a surface notch, the finite element method is used to study the interaction of Rayleigh waves with different types of surface defects, and we then compare the difference between their displacement signals. The simulation results show that the oscillation signal following the Rayleigh pulse resulting from the mode-convened shear wave can quantitatively characterize the surface notch at different temperatures, where the notch width and depth can be characterized by the arrival time and the temporal cycles of the oscillation signal, respectively. Moreover, as the temperature increases, the arrival time of the oscillation signal will be delayed, but the temporal cycles will remain unchanged. This research provides a theoretical basis for the quantitative detection of surface defects at high temperature.