This paper presents a microwave antenna sensor that has the ability to monitor fatigue cracks between lap joints where compressive force is present or in any other areas where a crack is hidden between two parts of a structure. The sensor is designed to be low profile, light weight, and conformal, making it ideal for aerospace applications where lap joints are a common design feature, and thus minimizing manual inspection times. The design of the fatigue sample for simulating a lap joint will be presented. The experiment results validated the microwave antenna sensor ’s capability to effectively monitor fatigue cracks under lap joints.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.