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. 2024 Jan 11;24(2):450.
doi: 10.3390/s24020450.

Durability Assessment of Bonded Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors for Aircraft Health Monitoring Applications

Jesús N Eiras  1 , Ludovic Gavérina  1 , Jean-Michel Roche  1
Affiliations

Durability Assessment of Bonded Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors for Aircraft Health Monitoring Applications

Jesús N Eiras et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

This study conducted experimental and numerical investigations on piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWASs) bonded to an aluminum plate to assess the impact of bonding degradation on Lamb wave generation. Three surface-bonded PWASs were examined, including one intentionally bonded with a reduced adhesive to create a defective bond. Thermal cyclic aging was applied, monitoring through laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) and static capacitance measurements. The PWAS with the initially defective bond exhibited the poorest performance over aging cycles, emphasizing the significance of the initial bond condition. As debonding progressed, modifications in electromechanical behavior were observed, leading to a reduction in wave amplitude and distortion of the generated wave field, challenging the validity of existing analytical modeling of wave-tuning curves for perfectly bonded PWASs. Both numerical simulations and experimental observations substantiated this finding. In conclusion, this study highlights the imperative of a high-integrity bond for the proper functioning of a guided wave-based structural health monitoring (SHM) system, emphasizing ongoing challenges in assessing SHM performance.

Keywords: guided waves; piezoelectric wafer active sensor; structural health monitoring.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of the accelerated testing procedure in a climatic chamber.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Wave field imaging testing configuration using a laser Doppler vibrometer. The positions of the three PWASs (D1, D2, and D3) are indicated with arrows.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) Schematic representation of the FEM and (b) Lamb wave dispersion curves for the considered aluminum plate.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Evolution of the static capacitance of the three PWASs with aging. The dashed line shows the average static capacitance of the free PWAS measured experimentally.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Out-of-plane velocity obtained experimentally for the PWASs D1, D2, and D3 through thermal aging. The dashed line depicts the PWAS perimeter.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Post-processed RMS amplitude LDV scans obtained for the PWASs D1, D2, and D3 at different ages (the thresholded and binarized images are shown as a red overlay). The dashed line depicts the PWAS perimeter.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Estimation of the debonded area for all the PWASs according to the filtered RMS amplitudes displayed in Figure 6.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Admittance spectra from FEM simulations: healthy and deteriorated scenarios of the PWASs D1 (top), D2 (middle), and D3 (bottom).
Figure 9
Figure 9
Static capacitance of the three PWASs obtained through the FEM (considering the data sheet properties of the Fuji C6 PZT given in Section 2.3) at the different aging scenarios. The dashed line shows the static capacitance of the free PWAS.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Simulated LDV scans for (a) out-of-plane velocity and (b) RMS amplitudes, obtained at 25 kHz for all the PWASs and considered damage scenarios.
Figure 11
Figure 11
(a) Comparison between the input FEM-debonded PWAS areas (retrieved from experimental RMS scans) and their posterior estimates using similar filtering on simulated RMS scans. (b) One-to-one comparison of the percentage of debonded area estimates.
Figure 12
Figure 12
Wave-tuning curves obtained from the FEM at an arbitrary position on the plate for perfect and aged PWAS bonds (retrieved from the post-processed LDV scans shown in Figure 6).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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