Abstract
Increasing involvement of commercial enterprises in space activities is among leading forces behind a renewed interest in structural diagnostic methodologies promising potential for improving safety, operability and cost effectiveness of launch vehicles and spaceships. It is envisioned that unobtrusive, real time structural health monitoring (SHM) systems may assist in space vehicle’s prelaunch qualification, orbital operation, safe disintegration during reentry or recertification for a next flight. SHM experiment utilizing piezoelectric wafer active sensors in conjunction with electro-mechanical impedance measurements has been develop to explore feasibility of active structural health monitoring during suborbital space flight. Details of experiment are discussed and some results obtained in real time for all segments of vehicle’s trajectory are presented. Experimental data collected during suborbital space flight has shown feasibility of SHM in the challenging environment, utility of thin wafer piezoelectric sensors as active elements of spacecraft SHM system, and potential of the electro-mechanical impedance method for real time structural integrity assessment of the payload.
Published Version
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