A Simplified Dispersion Compensation Algorithm for the Interpretation of Guided Wave Signals

Due to the multimodal and dispersive characteristics of guided waves, guided wave testing signals are always overlapped and difficult to separate for correct interpretations. To this end, a simplified dispersion compensation algorithm is put forward in this paper. The dispersion elimination is accomplished by compensating the second-order nonlinear phase shift of guided wave signals, which is the cause of the dispersion when narrow band exciting signals are used. This algorithm is easy to implement and has no need of prior knowledge of the guided wave dispersion relationship. Considering that the center frequency, which is a key parameter for this algorithm, is nearly impossible to determine accurately in practical applications, the effect of the center frequency deviation on the algorithm is further studied. Both theoretical analysis and numerical simulation indicate the insensitivity of the algorithm to the deviation of the center frequency, and hence, there is no need to determine the center frequency accurately, facilitating the practical use of the algorithm. Based on this simplified dispersion compensation algorithm and in cooperation with the matching pursuit method, the mode separation is further performed for interpreting of overlapped guided wave signals. Dispersion compensation is first applied to the testing signal with respect to a certain mode which will compress the waveform of the mode while the others still spread. Then, this compressed waveform is separated with the Gabor based matching pursuit method. Both simulation and experiment are designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.