<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This paper presents technique for qualitative assessment of fatigue crack growth monitoring, utilizing guided elastic waves generated by the sparse PZT piezoelectric transducers network in the pitch – catch configuration. Two Damage Indices (DIs) correlated with the total energy received by a given sensor are used to detect fatigue cracks and monitor their growth. The indices proposed carry marginal signal information content in order to decrease their sensitivity with respect to other undesired non-controllable factors which may distort the received signal. The reason for that is to limit the false calls ratio which besides the damage detection capability of a system, plays a crucial role in applications. However, even such simplified damage indices can alter over a long term, leading to the misclassification problem. Considering a single sensing path, it is very difficult to distinguish whether the resultant change of DIs is caused by a damage or due to decoherence of these DIs. Therefore, assessment approaches based on threshold levels fixed separately for DIs obtained on each of the sensing paths, would eventually lead to a false call. An alternative approach is to compare changes of DIs for all sensing paths. Developing damage distorts the signal only for the sensing paths in its proximity. In order to decrease the misclassification risk, a method of compensating such DIs drift is proposed. The main features and damage detection capabilities of this method will be demonstrated by conducting a laboratory fatigue test of an aircraft panel. The proposed approach has been verified on a real structure during fatigue test of a helicopter tail boom.</p></abstract>

This paper presents technique for qualitative assessment of fatigue crack growth monitoring, utilizing guided elastic waves generated by the sparse PZT piezoelectric transducers network in the pitch – catch configuration. Two Damage Indices (DIs) correlated with the total energy received by a given sensor are used to detect fatigue cracks and monitor their growth. The indices proposed carry marginal signal information content in order to decrease their sensitivity with respect to other undesired non-controllable factors which may distort the received signal. The reason for that is to limit the false calls ratio which besides the damage detection capability of a system, plays a crucial role in applications. However, even such simplified damage indices can alter over a long term, leading to the misclassification problem. Considering a single sensing path, it is very difficult to distinguish whether the resultant change of DIs is caused by a damage or due to decoherence of these DIs. Therefore, assessment approaches based on threshold levels fixed separately for DIs obtained on each of the sensing paths, would eventually lead to a false call. An alternative approach is to compare changes of DIs for all sensing paths. Developing damage distorts the signal only for the sensing paths in its proximity. In order to decrease the misclassification risk, a method of compensating such DIs drift is proposed. The main features and damage detection capabilities of this method will be demonstrated by conducting a laboratory fatigue test of an aircraft panel. The proposed approach has been verified on a real structure during fatigue test of a helicopter tail boom.

Fatigue Cracks Detection using PZT Transducers under the Influence of Uncertain Environmental Factors

Fatigue of Aircraft Structures

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This paper presents technique for qualitative assessment of fatigue crack growth monitoring, utilizing guided elastic waves generated by the sparse PZT...

Fatigue Cracks Detection using PZT Transducers under the Influence of Uncertain Environmental Factors

Published Online: Jul 22, 2017

Page range: 111 - 115

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/fas-2016-0010

Keywords
Structural Health Monitoring, PZT transducers, fatigue cracks detection, environmental factors compensation

© 2016 Michal Dziendzikowski et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Fatigue Cracks Detection using PZT Transducers under the Influence of Uncertain Environmental Factors

Published Online: Jul 22, 2017

Page range: 111 - 115

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/fas-2016-0010

KeywordsStructural Health Monitoring, PZT transducers, fatigue cracks detection, environmental factors compensation

© 2016 Michal Dziendzikowski et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Structural Health Monitoring, PZT transducers, fatigue cracks detection, environmental factors compensation