Recent Advances in Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring Applications.

Hanfei Mei,Victor Giurgiutiu,Mohammad Haider,Asaad Migot,Roshan Joseph

doi:10.3390/s19020383

Abstract

In this paper, some recent piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) progress achieved in our laboratory for active materials and smart structures (LAMSS) at the University of South Carolina: http: //www.me.sc.edu/research/lamss/ group is presented. First, the characterization of the PWAS materials shows that no significant change in the microstructure after exposure to high temperature and nuclear radiation, and the PWAS transducer can be used in harsh environments for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. Next, PWAS active sensing of various damage types in aluminum and composite structures are explored. PWAS transducers can successfully detect the simulated crack and corrosion damage in aluminum plates through the wavefield analysis, and the simulated delamination damage in composite plates through the damage imaging method. Finally, the novel use of PWAS transducers as acoustic emission (AE) sensors for in situ AE detection during fatigue crack growth is presented. The time of arrival of AE signals at multiple PWAS transducers confirms that the AE signals are originating from the crack, and that the amplitude decay due to geometric spreading is observed.

Highlights

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is an emerging interdisciplinary research field, which aims at detecting damage and providing a diagnosis of structural health [1,2,3,4,5]
The main advantage of piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) transducers over conventional ultrasonic probes is their low cost and light weight. They can be permanently bonded on the host structures in large quantities, and achieve real-time monitoring of the structural health status. These PWAS transducers can be used in a harsh environment
It can be found that the long PWAS transducers can successfully generate the the pristine stiffener and cracked respectively

Summary

Introduction

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is an emerging interdisciplinary research field, which aims at detecting damage and providing a diagnosis of structural health [1,2,3,4,5]. Piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) were developed by our LAMSS group as convenient enablers for generating and receiving Lamb waves in structures for SHM applications [8]. The main advantage of PWAS transducers over conventional ultrasonic probes is their low cost and light weight. They can be permanently bonded on the host structures in large quantities, and achieve real-time monitoring of the structural health status. These PWAS transducers can be used in a harsh environment

Methods

Results

Conclusion