Metal-core Piezoelectric Fiber (MPF) was shown to have great potential to be a structurally integrated sensor for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. Compared with the typical foil strain gauge, MPF is more suitable for high frequency strain measurement and can create direct conversion of mechanical energy into electric energy without the need for complex signal conditioners or gauge bridges. In this paper, a MPF-based smart layer is developed as an embedded network of distributed strain sensors that can be surface-mounted on a thin-walled structure. Each pair of the adjacent MPFs divides the entire structure into several “virtual elements (VEs)”. By exciting the structure at the natural frequency of the VE, a “weak” formulation of the previously developed Pseudo-excitation (PE) approach based on sparse virtual element boundary measurement (VEBM) is proposed to detect the damage. To validate the effectiveness of the VEBM based approach, experiments are conducted to locate a small crack in a cantilever beam by using a MPF- based smart layer and a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV). Results demonstrate that the proposed VEBM approach not only inherits the enhanced noise immunity capability of the “weak” formulation of the PE approach, but also allows a significant reduction in the number of measurement points as compared to the original version of the PE approach.
An unsymmetrical switch circuit is designed for semi-active control method based on synchronized switching damping principle of piezoelectric actuators. A bypass capacitor and an additional switch are used to realize unsymmetrical bipolar voltage. The control logic of the switches is introduced in detail and the switched voltages, which directly influence the control performance, are derived as functions of the vibration amplitude and the outputs of the voltage sources. Simulations were carried out to verify the design circuit and the theoretical results of the switched voltage. The voltage ratio increases with increasing bypass capacitance, but its increasing rate decreases. The results show that large bypass capacitor is needed to realize a voltage ratio of 3, which is common in some piezoelectric actuator such as MFC.
Nonlinear guided waves are sensitive to small-scale fatigue damage that may hardly be identified by traditional
techniques. A characterization method for fatigue damage is established based on nonlinear Lamb waves in conjunction
with the use of a piezoelectric sensor network. Theories on nonlinear Lamb waves for damage detection are first
introduced briefly. Then, the ineffectiveness of using pure frequency-domain information of nonlinear wave signals for
locating damage is discussed. With a revisit to traditional gross-damage localization techniques based on the time of
flight, the idea of using temporal signal features of nonlinear Lamb waves to locate fatigue damage is introduced. This
process involves a time-frequency analysis that enables the damage-induced nonlinear signal features, which are either
undiscernible in the original time history or uninformative in the frequency spectrum, to be revealed. Subsequently, a
finite element modeling technique is employed, accounting for various sources of nonlinearities in a fatigued medium. A
piezoelectric sensor network is configured to actively generate and acquire probing Lamb waves that involve damageinduced
nonlinear features. A probability-based diagnostic imaging algorithm is further proposed, presenting results in
diagnostic images intuitively. The approach is experimentally verified on a fatigue-damaged aluminum plate, showing
reasonably good accuracy. Compared to existing nonlinear ultrasonics-based inspection techniques, this approach uses a
permanently attached sensor network that well accommodates automated online health monitoring; more significantly, it
utilizes time-domain information of higher-order harmonics from time-frequency analysis, and demonstrates a great
potential for quantitative characterization of small-scale damage with improved localization accuracy.
Integrity of in-service engineering structures is prone to fatigue damage over their lifespan. Majority of the currently
existing elastic-wave-based damage identification techniques have been developed and validated for damage at
macroscopic levels, by canvassing linear properties of elastic waves such as attenuation, transmission, reflection and
mode conversion. However the real damage in engineering structures often initiates from fatigue crack, presenting highly
nonlinear characteristics under cyclic loads. It is of great significance but vast challenge to detect fatigue damage of
small dimension at its initial stage. In this study, traditional elastic-wave-based damage identification techniques were
first employed with an attempt to detect fatigue crack initiated from a notch in an aluminium plate with the assistance of
a signal correlation analysis, to observe the deficiency of the approach. Then the higher-order harmonic wave generation
was used to exploit the nonlinear characteristics of acousto-ultrasonic waves (Lamb waves), whereby the fatigue damage
was characterised. Results show that nonlinear characteristics of acousto-ultrasonic waves can facilitate more effective
detection of fatigue damage than linear signal features such as wave reflection, transmission or mode conversion.
KEYWORDS: Actuators, Sensors, Systems modeling, Ferroelectric materials, Control systems, Vibration control, Electrodes, Active vibration control, Electric field sensors, Transducers
Successful active vibration control using piezoceramic (PZT) elements is usually based on a full understanding of the system. When a large number of sensors and actuators are used, mechanical coupling between the piezo-elements and the host structures may be strong. The control of such systems requires simulation models capable of taking the full coupling into account. This paper presents such a model on the basis of a rectangular plate with symmetrically integrated piezo-elements. Experimental validations have been systematically performed and showed that the established model is applicable to plates exhibiting relatively complex modal behavior. Using this model, actuators of different shapes (rectangular, circular, oval, etc.) and optimal control of the plate structure using PZT actuators and sensors are investigated. This work allows one to have a better understanding of active control of vibration with PZT and provides information about the importance of shape, size and number of sensors and actuators for active control applications.
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