Determinations of stress wave velocity in a timber pole using wavelet transform

This paper presents an application of Wavelet Transform (WT) for determination of stress wave velocity for Non-destructive Testing of tibmer utility poles in service. For surface Non-destructive Testing (NDT), the hammer impact, which produces generally broadband frequency excitation, is used to generate stress wave. Moreover, due to practicality the impact location for field testing of a utility pole is on the side of the pole and 1.5 m above ground level. And the geometry of utility pole could not guarantee non-dispersive longitudinal wave. All of these issues have resulted in lack of accuracy and reliability of results from surface NDT in field testing. In recognition of such problem this research explores methods to reliably calculate desire wave velocity by isolating wave mode and studying dispersive nature of utility pole. Fast Fourier Transfer (FFT) is firstly conducted to determine the suitable frequency from a stress wave data. Then WT is applied on the wave data mentioned to perform time-frequency analysis. Velocity can be determined by time history data of desired frequency from WT results which will be compared with the available analytical solution for longitudinal wave velocity. The results of the investigation showed that wavelet transform analysis can be a reliable signal processing tool for non-destructive testing in terms of velocity determination, which in turn also helps to determine the embedded length of the timber pole.