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. 2021 Feb 2;21(3):993.
doi: 10.3390/s21030993.

Structural Health Monitoring Using Ultrasonic Guided-Waves and the Degree of Health Index

Sergio Cantero-Chinchilla  1 , Gerardo Aranguren  2 , José Manuel Royo  3 , Manuel Chiachío  4   5 , Josu Etxaniz  2 , Andrea Calvo-Echenique  3
Affiliations

Structural Health Monitoring Using Ultrasonic Guided-Waves and the Degree of Health Index

Sergio Cantero-Chinchilla et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

This paper proposes a new damage index named degree of health (DoH) to efficiently tackle structural damage monitoring in real-time. As a key contribution, the proposed index relies on a pattern matching methodology that measures the time-of-flight mismatch of sequential ultrasonic guided-wave measurements using fuzzy logic fundamentals. The ultrasonic signals are generated using the transmission beamforming technique with a phased-array of piezoelectric transducers. The acquisition is carried out by two phased-arrays to compare the influence of pulse-echo and pitch-catch modes in the damage assessment. The proposed monitoring approach is illustrated in a fatigue test of an aluminum sheet with an initial notch. As an additional novelty, the proposed pattern matching methodology uses the data stemming from the transmission beamforming technique for structural health monitoring. The results demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed framework in providing a qualitative and quantitative assessment for fatigue crack damage.

Keywords: degree of health index; fatigue damage detection; structural health monitoring; transmission beamforming; ultrasonic guided-waves.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Panel (a): Selection of characteristic points (CPs) above the threshold value At. Panel (b): Illustration of ToF dispersion due to repeated measurements. Panel (c): Trapezoidal function used to evaluate the ToF mismatch based on the repeated measurements of one CP (blue circles).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic workflow of the methodology divided between the data acquisition of ultrasonic data and its post-processing depending on the actual structural state (i.e., pristine or in operation).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Panel (a): Schematic of the specimen and notch geometry, along with the position of the piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) arrays. Panel (b): Picture of M(T) aluminum specimen with two permanently attached phased-arrays mounted on the fatigue testing machine.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic of the ultrasonic guided-wave based tests.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Time (panel (a)) and frequency (panel (b)) domain representations of the bandpass filter.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Degree of health (DoH) matrices at different fatigue cycles for both phased-arrays, that is, pulse-echo (Ti) and pitch-catch (Si).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Evolution of the mean value of all DoH matrices obtained throughout the fatigue test in comparison with the crack length of the aluminum specimen in panel (a). Panel (b) shows the fatigue crack at 100,000 cycles along with the points used to digitize its length.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Evolution of Mj for the PWAS of the arrays in pulse-echo (panels (a,b)) and pitch-catch (panels (c,d)) modes at two particular directions.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Relationship between crack growth and mean of DoH for both pulse-echo and pitch-catch working modes. Panels (a,b) provide the data for the 37 directions with an average value of DoH with respect to the PWAS in the array. Additionally, (c,d) show the mean and 90% and 50% uncertainty bands of the DoH data.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Crack growth data for QQ-A-250/5 ‘O’ M(T) aluminum specimen correlated with the stress intensity range.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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