An Approach to Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures Based on Embedded PZT Transducers

One approach to developing a system of continues automated monitoring of structural health is to use elastic waves excited in a given medium by a piezoelectric transducers network. Depending on their source and the geometry of the structure under consideration elastic waves can propagate over a significant distance. They are also sensitive to local structure discontinuities and deformations providing a tool for detecting local damage in large aerospace structures. This paper investigates the issue of Barely Visible Impact Damages (BVIDs) detection in composite materials. The model description and the results of impact tests verifying damage detection capabilities of the proposed signal characteristics are presented in the paper.