Spectrotemporal analysis of guided-wave pulse-echo signals: Part 1. Dispersive systems

In this paper, a wavelet-based time frequency analysis is presented to analyze guided-wave signals for rapid inspection of thin-walled structural members. The overall objective is to detect and locate discontinuities using a single broadband signal. Part 1 of this paper shows how the wavelet transform can be used to analyze a dispersive system. A straightforward procedure is developed to extract group delay information from the computed wavelet transform coefficients. The procedure is demonstrated by a simulation study for single-mode and simple dual-mode dispersion signals. Part 2 is an experimental study of multimode dispersion.