Ultrasonic SH wave velocity in textured aluminium plates

Neutron diffraction has been used to measure the crystallite orientation distribution function for a sample of rolled aluminium plate. Based on this study an expression is given for the ultrasonic velocity of the fundamental horizontally polarized shear (SH) wave propagating in the plane of the plate at an angle θ to the rolling direction. This expression is correct to second order in the leading texture component and is compared with the exact numerical result and with measurements of the SH wave velocity for this plate. In textured materials the group and phase velocities are not, in general, parallel and an expression for the angle between them is derived. Inclusion of this effect leads to better agreement between experiment and theory. The results have application to the texture-independent determination of stress with ultrasonics recently proposed by MacDonald and Thompson et al.