The elastic spiral phase pipe

Abstract

We design a device for the passive mode conversion of guided, axisymmetric, ultrasonic waves in hollow elastic pipes into arbitrary non-axisymmetric flexural waves that have a constant angular profile along the pipe axis. To achieve this we create an elastic analogue to optical spiral phase plates—the elastic spiral phase pipe. Three possible configurations of the elastic spiral phase pipe are presented which allow the efficient generation of non-axisymmetric flexural waves from an axisymmetric, longitudinal forcing. The theory leverages the dispersive nature of the guided elastic waves that are supported in pipes through a defined relative refractive index. As such we include a spectral collocation method used to aid the design of the elastic spiral phase pipe that is corroborated with numerical simulations and then experimentally verified.