Lamb wave-based real-time damage location system with integrated internet of things

Abstract

In this paper, an automated Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system that uses Lamb waves is presented. A miniaturized prototype named ‘Real-Time Damage Location System’ (RTDLS) is designed and fabricated for thin plate structure, which can automatically locate single damage in an area of 100 mm × 100 mm by manually pressing a tactile button or by using an Internet of Things (IoT) platform. RTDLS is a lightweight, mobile, and plug-and-play device that uses 3 piezoelectric wafer transducers. It uses the pitch-catch technique with a novel damage location algorithm to locate damage in a plate. It displays the location of the identified damage on an LCD screen and on the webpage through live broadcasts using an IoT platform. RTDLS can store Lamb wave data corresponding to the pristine and damaged states of the structure in a FLASH memory so that no data is erased until reset action is performed.