Enhanced impact echo frequency peak by time domain summation of signals with different source receiver spacing

The Impact Echo method can be used to measure the thickness of concrete plate like structures. Measurements are based on the identification of a clear thickness resonance frequency which can be difficult in very thick or highly attenuative plates. In this study the detectability of the measured resonant frequency is enhanced by time domain summation of signals with different source receiver spacing. The proposed method is based on the spatial and temporal properties of the first higher symmetric zero group velocity Lamb mode (S1-ZGV) which are described in detail. No application dependent tuning or filtering is needed which makes the method robust and suitable for implementation in automatic IE thickness measurements. The proposed technique is exemplified with numerical data and field data from a thick concrete wall and a highly attenuative asphalt concrete layer.