Recent PWAS-SHM Developments in the Laboratory for Active Materials and Smart Structures

This paper will present recent results obtained in the Laboratory for Active Materials and Smart Structures in the development of piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) technologies for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. One development consists in a carefully conducted study of the convergence of commercially available finite element method (FEM) codes used in the simulation of guided waves traveling in thin-wall structures. Furthermore, the interaction of these waves with various types of damage was studied with the FEM method and compared with experimental results. Another development consists in an analytical model for the prediction of the interaction between PWAS-generated guided waves and structural damage. This topic has been developed and coded in a MATLAB GUI under the name of Wave Form Revealer (WFR). The WFR software allows for the linear and nonlinear analysis of multimodal guided waves in interaction with various damage types characterized by damage interaction parameters. The study of energy transduction between the PWAS and thin-wall structure subjected to guided wave SHM was undertaken in the context of multiple guided wave modes and very interesting energy tuning principles for optimal power consumption have been developed. The paper ends with conclusions and suggestions for further work.Copyright © 2013 by ASME