Rayleigh wave propagation in a solid with a cold-worked surface layer

The propagation of the Rayleigh surface wave is experimentally studied along the top surface of used railroad rail under conditions where ultrasonic pulses have carrier frequencies ranging from 0.4 to 3.0 MHz and approximately 10 µs duration. The generation of the first higher (M₂₁ or Sezawa) mode as well as the fundamental (M₁₁) mode and their dispersion properties are observed. These phenomena are attributable to the presence of the cold-worked surface layer caused by the wheel passage. It is shown that a theoretical model of a single layer overlying a half space, whose elastic constants are determined by a destructive method, yields results which agree with the dispersion curves obtained experimentally. On the basis of this one-layered model, an inversion method to estimate the layer thickness and its elastic constants is discussed.