This paper details a study on the detectability of dry contact kissing bonds in adhesive joints using three ultrasonic inspection techniques. Conventional normal incidence longitudinal and shear wave inspection were conducted on dry contact kissing bonds using a standard immersion transducer and an EMAT respectively. The detectability of the dry contact kissing bonds was assessed by calculating the reflection coefficient of the interface at varying loads for a number of surface roughnesses. A high power ultrasonic method was also employed to determine the non-linear behavior of the adhesive interface. The non-linearity of the interface was determined by the ratio of the amplitudes of the first harmonic and fundamental frequencies of the transmitted waveform. It was found that the high power technique showed the greatest sensitivity to kissing bonds at low contact pressures, however at high loads conventional longitudinal wave testing was more sensitive. It was also noted that a combination of two or more techniques could provide enhanced information about the kissing bond compared to a single technique alone.
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