Die zerstörungsfreie Ultraschallprüfung von akustisch anisotropen Werkstoffen stellt auch heute noch eine Herausforderung dar. Die Gefügestruktur in solchen Materialien beeinflusst die Wellenausbreitung derart, dass es zum einen zu starken Streuungen durch die großflächigen Korngrenzen und zum anderen, aufgrund der akustischen Anisotropie, zu einer Richtungsabhängigkeit der Schallgeschwindigkeiten kommt. In den vergangenen Jahren wurden bereits Lösungsansätze zur mathematischen Modellierung der Schallausbreitung in anisotropen Materialien vorgestellt. Diese basieren in der Regel auf FEM- bzw. FIT- Algorithmen, die durch die Diskretisierung des gesamten Volumens einen hohen Rechenaufwand erfordern und in der täglichen Prüfpraxis aufgrund ihrer Komplexität bei der Parametrierung nur bedingt einsetzbar sind. Aus diesem Grund wird hier ein Ansatz zur Schallfeldberechnung gewählt, der auf die praktische Anwendung von Gruppenstrahler-Prüfköpfen zugeschnitten ist. Während sich andere Verfahren auf einzelne Wellenanteile und monofrequente Lösungen beschränken, um den Rechenaufwand zu reduzieren, können mit diesem Ansatz die reale Signalform des Prüfkopfes sowie alle auftretenden Wellenanteile in homogenen transversalisotropen Medien berücksichtigt werden. Durch entsprechende Optimierungen im Berechnungsalgorithmus lässt sich das gesamte vierdimensionale Schallfeld eines Gruppenstrahler-Prüfkopfes im Halbraum in kürzester Zeit berechnen. Die analytische Lösung der Wellengleichung für den Halbraum in Form einer Greenschen Funktion wird dabei in eine Gleichung umgeformt, die hier als vierdimensionale Punktrichtwirkung bezeichnet wird. Dieser Modellansatz ermöglicht es, die Parameter eines Gruppenstrahlersystems in der praktischen Anwendung zu überprüfen und durch iterative Rechnungen zu optimieren. Mit Hilfe einer einfach zu handhabenden Visualisierungstechnik ist es möglich diesen Modellansatz mit realen Schallfeldmessungen zu vergleichen. Dazu werden mit elektrodynamischen Sonden die einzelnen Komponenten des dreidimensionalen Vektors der Teilchenverschiebung an der Oberfläche von Festkörpern abgetastet. Die an den Messpunkten ermittelten Zeitfunktionen des Verschiebungsvektors werden dann dem berechneten Zeitverlauf der Wellenausbreitung gegenübergestellt. Die berechneten und gemessenen Schallfelder stimmen in der Phasenlage und im Amplitudenverlauf gut überein. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass mit dem verwendeten Rechenmodell alle in der Realität auftretenden Wellenanteile vollständig berücksichtigt werden und dreidimensionale Problemstellungen aus der Praxis mit diesem Modell korrekt berechnet werden können. / The non-destructive ultrasonic testing of acoustic anisotropic materials is an important challenge. The texture of these materials causes a strong scattering of the sound wave by the extensive grain boundaries and a direction dependent sound velocity by the acoustic anisotropy. Several approaches for the modelling of the sound propagation in anisotropic materials were presented in the last years. These approaches are normally based on FEM or FIT algorithms using a discretisation of the complete volume. Their calculation needs extensive time and a very complex parameterisation. Thus these algorithms are not suitable in practice of ultrasonic testing. In this work an approach is presented that is optimised for the application of phased array transducers. The new approach considers the real frequency spectrum of the transducer as well as all occurring wave modes in homogeneous transversely isotropic media, whereas other approaches are limited to solutions for single wave modes and single frequencies to reduce the calculation effort. The appropriate optimisations of the mathematical algorithm allow the fast calculation of the complete four-dimensional transient wave field of a phased array transducer in the half-space. The Green’s functions are derived by an analytical solution of the elastodynamic wave equation for the half-space. These functions will be transformed into an equation which will be referred to in this work as four-dimensional directivity pattern. This approach allows the verification of the parameters of a phased array system and their optimisation by iterative calculations in the practical application. To get accurate results in these calculations, the experimental verification of the applied mathematical model for the wave propagation is an essential task. The technique presented in this work applies electrodynamic probes, which provides a simple use. The probes can detect the particle displacement at a solid surface in all three spatial directions. The measured time-functions of the wave field will be compared with the calculated time-functions. They show a good accordance in the phase and the amplitude. This confirms that the applied mathematical model considers completely all in practice occurring wave modes. The results further show that three-dimensional problems in practice can be calculated correctly with this model.

Two surface wave testing methods, namely, (i) the spectral analysis of surface waves (SASW), and (ii) the multi-channel analysis of surface waves (MASW), form non-destructive and non-intrusive techniques for predicting the shear wave velocity profile of different layers of ground and pavement. These field testing tools are based on the dispersive characteristics of Rayleigh waves, that is, different frequency components of the surface wave travel at different velocities in layered media. The SASW and MASW testing procedure basically comprises of three different components: (i) field measurements by employing geophones/accelerometers, (ii) generating dispersion plots, and (iii) predicting the shear wave velocity profile based on an inversion analysis. For generating the field dispersion plot, the complexities involved while doing the phase unwrapping calculations for the SASW technique, while performing the spectral calculations on the basis of two receivers’ data, makes it difficult to automate since it requires frequent manual judgment. In the present thesis, a new method, based on the sliding Fourier transform, has been introduced. The proposed method has been noted to be quite accurate, computationally economical and it generally overcomes the difficulties associated with the unwrapping of the phase difference between the two sensors’ data. In this approach, the unwrapping of the phase can be carried out without any manual intervention. As a result, an automation of the entire computational process to generate the dispersion plot becomes feasible. The method has been thoroughly validated by including a number of examples on the basis of surface wave field tests as well as synthetic test data. While obtaining the dispersion image by using the MASW method, three different transformation techniques, namely, (i) the Park’s wavefield transform, (ii) the frequency (f) -wavenumber ( ) transform and (iii) the time intercept ( -phase slowness (p) transform have been utilized for generating the multimodal dispersion plots. The performance of these three different methods has been assessed by using synthetic as well as field data records obtained from a ground site by means of 48 geophones. Two-dimensional as well as three-dimensional dispersion plots were generated. The Park’s wavefield transformation method has been found to be especially advantageous since it neither requires a very high sampling rate nor an inclusion of the zero padding of the data in a wavenumber (distance) domain. In the case of an irregular dispersive media, a proper analysis of the higher modes existing in the dispersion plots becomes essential for predicting the shear wave velocity profile of ground on the basis of surface wave tests. In such cases, the establishment of the predominant mode becomes quite significant. In the current investigation for Rayleigh wave propagation, the predominant mode has been computed by maximizing the normalized vertical displacements along the free surface. Eigenvectors computed from the thin layer approach (TLM) approach are analyzed to predict the corresponding predominant mode. It is noted that the establishment of the predominant mode becomes quite important where only two to six sensors are employed and the governing (predominant) modal dispersion curve is usually observed rather than several multiple modes which can otherwise be identified by using around 24 to 48 multiple sensors. By using the TLM, it is, however, not possible to account for the exact contribution of the elastic half space in the dynamic stiffness matrix (DSM) approach. A method is suggested to incorporate the exact contribution of the elastic half space in the TLM. The numerical formulation is finally framed as a quadratic eigenvalue problem which can be easily solved by using the subroutine polyeig in MATLAB. The dispersion plots were generated for several chosen different ground profiles. The numerical results were found to match quite well with the data available from literature. In order to address all the three different aspects of SASW and MASW techniques, a series of field tests were performed on five different ground sites. The ground vibrations were induced by means of (i) a 65 kg mass dropped freely from a height of 5 m, and (ii) by using a 20 pound sledge hammer. It was found that by using a 65 kg mass dropped from a height of 5 m, for stiffer sites, ground exploration becomes feasible even up to a depth of 50-80 m whereas for the softer sites the exploration depth is reduced to about 30 m. By using a 20 lb sledge hammer, the exploration depth is restricted to only 8-10 m due to its low impact energy. Overall, it is expected that the work reported in the thesis will furnish useful guidelines for (i) performing the SASW and MASW field tests, (ii) generating dispersion plots/images, and (iii) predicting the shear wave velocity profile of the site based on an inversion analysis.