A simple method of damage severity assessment on sheet materials is suggested and proved by theory and experiment. The investigated defect types are in forms of added mass and crack. The method is based on the frequency shift measurement of a material vibrating as a membrane subjected to static tension and irradiated by an acoustic wave. It is shown both theoretically and experimentally that the natural frequency of the damaged membrane is shifted relative to its position in the ideal material. A local increase in thickness (or addition of mass) shifts the natural frequency down, while a crack shifts the frequency up. The method can be considered as acoustic weighting through the frequency shift. The sensitivity of this method can be high because frequency measurement is one of the most accurate measurements in physics and metrology.
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