Active health monitoring of an aircraft wing with embedded piezoelectric sensor/actuator network: I. Defect detection, localization and growth monitoring

Xiaoliang Zhao, Huidong Gao, Guangfan Zhang, Bulent Ayhan, Fei Yan, Chiman Kwan, Joseph L. Rose

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

698 Scopus citations

Abstract

This work focuses on an ultrasonic guided wave structural health monitoring (SHM) system development for aircraft wing inspection. In part I of the study, a detailed description of a real aluminum wing specimen and some preliminary wave propagation tests on the wing panel are presented. Unfortunately, strong attenuation and scattering impede guided waves for large-area inspection. Nevertheless, small, low-cost and light-weight piezoelectric (PZT) discs were bonded to various parts of the aircraft wing, in a form of relatively sparse arrays, for simulated cracks and corrosion monitoring. The PZT discs take turns generating and receiving ultrasonic guided waves. Pair-wise through-transmission waveforms collected at normal conditions served as baselines, and subsequent signals collected at defected conditions such as rivet cracks or corrosion detected the presence of a defect and its location with a novel correlation analysis based technique called RAPID (reconstruction algorithm for probabilistic inspection of defects). The effectiveness of the algorithm was tested with several case studies in a laboratory environment. It showed good performance for defect detection, size estimation and localization in complex aircraft wing structures.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number032
Pages (from-to)1208-1217
Number of pages10
JournalSmart Materials and Structures
Volume16
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 1 2007

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Signal Processing
  • Civil and Structural Engineering
  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Materials Science(all)
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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