Simulation of Rayleigh waves in cracked plates

The aim of this paper is to develop new numerical procedures to detect micro cracks, or superficial imperfections, in thin plates using excitation by Rayleigh waves. We shall consider a unilateral contact problem between the two sides of the crack in an elastic plate subjected to suitable boundary conditions in order to reproduce a single Rayleigh wave cycle. An approximate solution of this problem will be calculated by using one of the Newmark methods for time discretization and a finite element method for space discretization. To deal with the nonlinearity due to the contact condition, an iterative algorithm involving one multiplier will be used; this multiplier will be approximated by using Newton's techniques. Finally, we will show numerical simulations for both cracked and non‐cracked plates. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.