In this paper, some recent piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) progress achieved in our laboratory for active materials and smart structures (LAMSS) at the University of South Carolina: http: //www.me.sc.edu/research/lamss/ group is presented. First, the characterization of the PWAS materials shows that no significant change in the microstructure after exposure to high temperature and nuclear radiation, and the PWAS transducer can be used in harsh environments for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. Next, PWAS active sensing of various damage types in aluminum and composite structures are explored. PWAS transducers can successfully detect the simulated crack and corrosion damage in aluminum plates through the wavefield analysis, and the simulated delamination damage in composite plates through the damage imaging method. Finally, the novel use of PWAS transducers as acoustic emission (AE) sensors for in situ AE detection during fatigue crack growth is presented. The time of arrival of AE signals at multiple PWAS transducers confirms that the AE signals are originating from the crack, and that the amplitude decay due to geometric spreading is observed.

This paper presents an experimental and analytical study of irreversible change in piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) electromechanical (E/M) impedance and admittance signature under high temperature exposure. After elevated to high temperatures, change in the material properties of PWAS can be quantified through irreversible changes in its E/M impedance and admittance signature. For the experimental study, circular PWAS transducers were exposed to temperatures between 50°C and 250°C at 50°C intervals. E/M impedance and admittance data were obtained before and after each heating cycle. Irreversible temperature sensitivity of PWAS resonance and anti-resonance frequency was estimated as 0.0246 kHz°C −1 and 0.0327 kHz°C −1 respectively. PWAS transducer material properties relevant to impedance or admittance signature such as dielectric constant, dielectric loss factor, mechanical loss factor, and in plane piezoelectric constant were determined experimentally at room temperature before and after the elevated temperature tests. The in-plane piezoelectric coefficient was measured by using optical-fiber strain transducer system. It was found that the dielectric constant and in-plane piezoelectric coefficient increased linearly with temperature. Dielectric loss also increases with temperature but remains within 0.2% of initial room temperature value. Change in dielectric properties and piezoelectric constant may be explained by depinning of domains or by domain wall motion. The piezoelectric material degradation was investigated microstructurally and crystallographically by using scanning electron microscope and x-ray diffraction method respectively. There were no noticeable changes in microstructure, crystal structure, unit cell dimension, or symmetry. The degraded PWAS material properties were determined by matching impedance and admittance spectrums from experimental results with a closed form circular PWAS analytical model. Analytical results showed that impedance and admittance strongly depend on elastic coefficient, dielectric constant, mechanical loss factor, dielectric loss tangent and in plane piezoelectric constant. These properties were found to be susceptible to change after high temperature exposure.

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This paper presents a new methodology for detecting and quantifying delamination in composite plates based on the high-frequency local vibration under the excitation of piezoelectric wafer active sensors. Finite-element-method-based numerical simulations and experimental measurements were performed to quantify the size, shape, and depth of the delaminations. Two composite plates with purpose-built delaminations of different sizes and depths were analyzed. In the experiments, ultrasonic C-scan was applied to visualize the simulated delaminations. In this methodology, piezoelectric wafer active sensors were used for the high-frequency excitation with a linear sine wave chirp from 1 to 500 kHz and a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer was used to measure the local vibration response of the composite plates. The local defect resonance frequencies of delaminations were determined from scanning laser Doppler vibrometer measurements and the corresponding operational vibration shapes were measured and utilized to quantify the delaminations. Harmonic analysis of local finite element model at the local defect resonance frequencies demonstrated that the strong vibrations only occurred in the delamination region. It is shown that the effect of delamination depth on the detectability of the delamination was more significant than the size of the delamination. The experimental and finite element modeling results demonstrate a good capability for the assessment of delamination with different sizes and depths in composite structures.

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