Estimating the plastic strain with the use of acoustic anisotropy

Experimental verification is used to show that reference specimens and structure unloading do not permit obtaining an adequate estimate of plastic strain by measuring the acoustic anisotropy. Analytic estimates of the speed of propagation of a plane acoustic wave of various polarizations in an elastoplastic material in the direction orthogonal to the action of preliminary uniaxial stress are obtained. An analysis of the obtained relations reveala an advantage of using absolute values of the velocity of longitudinal and transverse waves for the plastic strain identification. In contrast to acoustic anisotropy, the velocities vary monotonically in a wider range of plastic strains. At the same time, the elastic strain does not affect the longitude wave velocity, which allows one to use the measurement results to estimate the character of strains.