Shear horizontal (SH) waves are increasingly popular in structural health monitoring, which can purely propagate in waveguide bars of rectangular cross-section. This kind of bars is a crucial medium to monitor the components working in harsh environments, so that the sensing part is not influenced by environments. In the present study, the wave propagation equation of SH waves propagating in waveguide bars of rectangular cross-section is derived theoretically. The equation depicts that the SH waves can go through rectangular cross-section waveguide bars just like how they propagate in an infinite plate. Influences of structural sizes of waveguide bars on wave propagation are analyzed by ANSYS simulation and experiments. Experiment results are in excellent agreement with the simulation values. Moreover, results indicate that the waves distribute equally along the thickness section. And when the width of the bar is six times wider than the wavelength, there is only the fundamental SH wave excited and it propagates clearly in a non-dispersive way. The conclusions can supply a reliably methodology for the application of SH waves in bars of rectangular cross-section.
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