Detectability Analysis of Structural Defects Using Lamb Waves: A Frequency-Based Approach for Structural Health Monitoring

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) plays a crucial role in ensuring the integrity and longevity of aerospace structures. This study investigates the detectability of structural defects using Lamb waves, focusing on the impact of defect size on wave propagation characteristics. Numerical simulations were conducted on an aluminum plate embedded with a sensor-actuator network, evaluating the interaction of fundamental Lamb wave modes (A0 and S0) with defects of 2, 4, and 8 mm in diameter. Frequency spectrum analysis revealed that larger defects lead to significant energy attenuation, spectral shifts, and mode conversion, particularly influencing the dispersive nature of the A0 mode. Detectability maps derived from FFT energy loss highlight the sensitivity of different sensor locations to damage, demonstrating that defect size and wave scattering influence signal degradation. The findings confirm that Lamb wave-based SHM effectively enables early defect detection and damage quantification. The results support the optimization of sensor placement and excitation frequency selection to enhance defect characterization.