• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.174-178
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• 2001

The piezoelectric thin film sensor can be used to interpret variations in structural and material properties, e.g. for structural integrity monitoring and assessment. To illustrate one of this potential benefit, PVDF film sensors are used for monitoring impact damage initiation in Gr/Ep composite panel. Both PVDF film sensors and strain gages are surface mounted to the Gr/Ep specimens. A series of impact test at various impact energy by changing impact mass and height is performed on the instrumented drop weight impact tester. The sensor responses are carefully examined to predict the onset of impact damage such as matrix cracking, delamination, and fiber breakage, etc. Test results show that the particular waveforms of sensor signals implying the damage initiation and development are detected above the damage initiation impact energy. As expected, the PVDF film sensor is found to be more sensitive to impact damage initiation event than the strain gage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.158-162
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• 2003

The PVDF(polyvinylidene fluoride) film sensor as one of smart sensors has good characteristics to detect the impact damages of composite structures. The capabilities of the PVDF film sensor for evaluating impact behaviors and damages of Gr/Ep laminates subjected to low-velocity impact were examined. From sensor signals, the specific wave-forms implying the damage were detected. The wavelet transform(WT) and Short Time Fourier Transform(STFT) were used to decompose the piezoelectric sensor signals in this study. The impact behaviors of Gr/Ep laminates were simulated and the impact forces were reconstructed using the sensor signals. Finally, the impact damages were predicted by finite element analysis with the reconstructed forces. For experimental verification, a series of low-velocity impact tests from low energy to damage-induced energy were carried-out. The extent of damage in each case was examined by means of ultrasonic C-scan and the measured damage areas were agreed well with the predicted areas by the F.E.A.

• Composites Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.7-13
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• 2002

The piezoelectric thin film sensor has good characteristics to observe the impact responses of composite structures. The capabilities for monitoring impact behavior of Gr/Ep laminates subjected to damage-induced impact using the PVDF(polyvinylidene fluoride) film sensor were examined. For a series of low-velocity impact tests from low energy to damage-induced energy, simulated sensor signals were compared with measured signals and the PVDF film sensor. Local impact damages(matrix cracking and delamination) were found at three impact tests, but the measured signals agreed well with the simulated sensor signals based on the linear relationship between the impact forces and the PVDF film sensor signals. And the inverse technique was applied to reconstruct the impact forces using the PVDF film sensor signals. Most of reconstructed impact forces had good agreement with the measured forces. The comparison results showed that the local damage due. to low-velocity impact didn't disturb the global impact responses of composite laminates and the reconstruction of impact forces from PVDF sensor signals wasn't affected by the local damage.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.106-112
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• 2019

Flexible impact force sensors composed of piezoelectric PZT/PDMS composite sandwiched between Al/PET films were fabricated and their voltage signal characteristics were evaluated under varying impact forces for electronic mitt applications. The piezoelectric impact force sensor on an ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) substrate exhibited an output voltage difference of no greater than 40 mV a periodical impact test in with the impact load was increased by as much as 240 N by a restoration time of 5 s in a five-time experiment, implying good sensing ability. Moreover, the impact force sensor embedded four electronic mitts showed a reliable sensitivity of less than 1 mV/N and good repeatability under 100 N-impact force during a cycle test executed 10,000 times. This indicated that the fabricated flexible piezoelectric impact sensor could be used in electronic mitt applications. However, the relatively low elastic limit of substrate material such as EVA or poly-urethane slightly deteriorated the sensitivity of the impact sensor embedded electronic mitt at over 200 N-impact forces.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.125-128
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• 2003

Low-velocity impact damage is a major concern in the design of structures made of composite materials, because impact damage is hidden inside and cannot be detected by visual inspection. The piezoelectric thin film sensor can be used to detect variations in structural and material properties for structural health monitoring. In this paper, the PVDF and PZT sensors were used for monitoring impact damage initiation in Gr/Ep composite panel to illustrate this potential benefit. A series of impact test at various impact energy by changing impact mass and height is performed on the instrumented drop weight impact tester. The wavelet transform(WT) is used to decompose the piezoelectric sensor signals in this study. Test results show that the particular waveform of sensor signals implying the damage initiation and development are detected above the damage initiation impact energy. And it is found that both PZT and PVDF sensors can be used to detect the impact damage.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.394-401
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• 2004

This paper presents a study on the analysis of impact responses taking into account sensor dynamics. The contact force between impacting bodies is modelled by using Hertz force-displacement law and linear damping function. Since the real impact force and acceleration at the contact surface of two colliding bodies are measured indirectly by the sensors, the measured outputs can be a little different from the real impact responses. Therefore, in this study, the importance of consideration of sensor dynamics in the impact problems of two colliding bodies is emphasized. In order to verify the appropriateness of the proposed contact force model, the drop type impact test using two kinds of sensors is carried out. Through the numerical analysis and experiment, the effect of sensor dynamics and characteristics on the contact force model is investigated.

• Composites Research
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.141-145
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• 2014

This paper presents a structural health monitoring method using piezoelectric paint sensor designed for an impact sensor. The piezoelectric paint sensor can be flexibly deposited onto most structural surfaces in a thin form of the paint, and measure impact signals without any external device such as a power amplifier. In this study, a composite plate having four zones coated with piezoelectric paint was used for impact monitoring test. The sensitivity of the piezoelectric paint sensor was obtained by measuring the output voltages against the impact force. In addition to the sensitivity measurement, the impact position has been also estimated by comparing the output signals of the paint sensors when the impact occurs on the specimen.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.215-225
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• 2001

Stress waves monitored on the surface of structures under various loading conditions can provide useful information on the structural health status. In this paper, stress waves are measured by several sensors when a steel beam is impacted by a ball drop. The sensors used include the piezo-electric film Sensor, the electrical strain gage, and the ultrasonic transducer, and special attention is given to the pieza film sensor. The wavelet transform is used for the time-frequency analysis of dispersive waves propagating in the beam. The velocities of the wave produced in the team due to the lateral impact is found to be frequency-dependent and identified as the flexural wave velocity based on the comparisons with the Timoshenko beam theory. A linear impact site identification method is developed using the flexural wave, and the impact sites of the beam can be accurately estimated by the piezo film sensors. It is found that the piezo film sensor is appropriate for sensing stress waves due to impact and for locating impact sites in the beam.

• Composites Research
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.49-55
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• 2011

The use of advanced composite materials in main structures of military and civil aircraft has been increased rapidly because of their considerable metals in high specific strength and stiffness. However, the mechanical properties of composite materials may severely degrade in the presence of damage. Especially, the high-velocity impact such as a hailstorm, and a small piece of tire or stone during high taxing, can cause considerable damage to the structures and sub-system in spite of a very small mass. However, it is not easy to detect the damage in composite plates using a single sensor or any conventional methods. In this paper, the PVDF sensors and AE sensors were used for monitoring high-velocity impact damage initiation and propagation in composite laminates. The WT(wavelet transform) is used to decompose the sensor signals. In the PVDF sensor and AE sensor signal analysis, amounts of high-frequency signals are increased when the impact energy is increased. PVDF sensor and AE sensor signal appeared similar results. This study shows how various sensing techniques can be used to characterize high-velocity impact damage of advanced composite laminates.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.251-258
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• 2014

While the feasibility of vertical velocity as a threshold parameter for pre-impact fall detection has been verified, effects of sensor attachment locations and methods calculating vertical acceleration and velocity on the detection performance have not been studied yet. Regarding the vertical velocity-based pre-impact fall detection, this paper investigates detection accuracies of eight different cases depending on sensor locations (waist vs. sternum), vertical accelerations (accurate acceleration based on both accelerometer and gyroscope vs. approximated acceleration based on only accelerometer), and vertical velocities (velocity with attenuation vs. velocity difference). Test results show that the selection of waist-attached sensor, accurate acceleration, and velocity with attenuation based on accelerometer and gyroscope signals is the best in overall in terms of sensitivity and specificity of the detection as well as lead time.