Ultrasonic guided waves is one of the most effective nondestructive testing techniques,
which has been successfully applied for damage detection and evaluation of piping components.
However, research about defects detection for pipelines with multiple bends is
still limited. In this paper, effect of pipe bend arrangement on guided waves-based defect
detection is investigated by experimental method, in which different configurations
including space-Z type, U type, and plane-Z type are considered, respectively. Finite
element (FE) simulation is used to explore the propagation behaviors of axisymmetric
L (0, 2) mode in different bend configurations. On this basis, the detection sensitivity for
different crack locations is experimentally investigated. Simulation and experiment
results reveal that feature of guided waves propagation across the first and the second
bend is totally different, and the defect detection sensitivity in the second bend is different
from that in the first bend.