A frequency steerable electromagnetic acoustic transducer

Electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) are convenient for non-destructive evaluation of plate-like structures since they can generate, without the need for contact with the medium under test, different types of ultrasonic guided waves. Guided-wave EMATs usually generate waves omnidirectionally or in a principal propagation direction. Beam steering is desirable in several applications, such as in inspections of large-area structures. This is usually achieved with several independently controlled elements forming a phased array. Alternatively, mono-element transducers with directional-dependent spectral content can steer the generated wave beam by altering the frequency of the excitation signal. A piezoelectric transducer with this characteristic, namely a frequency steerable acoustic transducer, was previously proposed. Its design was addressed in the wavenumber domain, leading to unconventional transducer shapes, but still reproducible with a piezoelectric patch, albeit unfeasible to implement as an EMAT. Here, we propose a new kind of EMAT, namely, frequency steerable EMAT (FSEMAT), whose design is addressed in the spatial domain in order to ensure its physical realization with a coil-magnet arrangement whilst still effectively presenting steering capability. The novel EMAT was designed to generate the A0 Lamb wave mode in a frequency range from approximately 100 to 600 kHz. The FSEMAT was fabricated and experimentally evaluated in an aluminium plate at different frequencies within the designed frequency range, where each frequency corresponded to a specific propagating direction with high directivity, assessed by half-power beam widths of approximately 10 degrees. Furthermore, its theoretical directivity was computed by means of a wavenumber spectrum-based model, and showed good agreement with experimental results. The new transducer allows great flexibility effectively providing beam steering with a single EMAT.