Investigation on Sensor Fault Effects of Piezoelectric Transducers on Wave Propagation and Impedance Measurements

I. Buethe[1], C.-P. Fritzen[1]
[1]University of Siegen, Institute of Mechanics and Control Engineering-Mechatronics, Siegen, Germany
Published in 2013

For active Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), one popular sensor type is the piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) due to its multi-purpose application as actuator and sensor and its low cost. It is used to generate a wave field, which interacts with the structure and is recorded by a second set of PWASs. This method is called acousto ultrasonics. The change in wave field from transducer damage is modeled in COMSOL Multiphysics®, where the multiphysics interaction of the undamaged or damaged PWAS and the structure is modeled in time and frequency domain. The investigation shows how important it is to check that employed sensors are intact, as sensor faults have a big effect on the generated wave field.