• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.835-851
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• 2015

This paper presents theoretical and experimental evaluation of the structural health monitoring (SHM) capability of piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) at elevated temperatures. This is important because the technologies for structural sensing and monitoring need to account for the thermal effect and compensate for it. Permanently installed PWAS transducers have been One of the extensively employed sensor technologies for in-situ continuous SHM. In this paper, the electro-mechanical impedance spectroscopy (EMIS) method has been utilized as a dynamic descriptor of PWAS behavior and as a high frequency standing wave local modal technique. Another SHM technology utilizes PWAS as far-field transient transducers to excite and detect guided waves propagating through the structure. This paper first presents how the EMIS method is used to qualify and quantify circular PWAS resonators in an increasing temperature environment up to 230 deg C. The piezoelectric material degradation with temperature was investigated and trends of variation with temperature were deduced from experimental measurements. These effects were introduced in a wave propagation simulation software called Wave Form Revealer (WFR). The thermal effects on the substrate material were also considered. Thus, the changes in the propagating guided wave signal at various temperatures could be simulated. The paper ends with summary and conclusions followed by suggestions for further work.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.97-119
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• 2013

This paper presents numerical and experimental results on the use of guided waves for structural health monitoring (SHM) of crack growth during a fatigue test in a thick steel plate used for civil engineering application. Numerical simulation, analytical modeling, and experimental tests are used to prove that piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) can perform active SHM using guided wave pitch-catch method and passive SHM using acoustic emission (AE). AE simulation was performed with the multi-physic FEM (MP-FEM) approach. The MP-FEM approach permits that the output variables to be expressed directly in electric terms while the two-ways electromechanical conversion is done internally in the MP-FEM formulation. The AE event was simulated as a pulse of defined duration and amplitude. The electrical signal measured at a PWAS receiver was simulated. Experimental tests were performed with PWAS transducers acting as passive receivers of AE signals. An AE source was simulated using 0.5-mm pencil lead breaks. The PWAS transducers were able to pick up AE signal with good strength. Subsequently, PWAS transducers and traditional AE transducer were applied to a 12.7-mm CT specimen subjected to accelerated fatigue testing. Active sensing in pitch catch mode on the CT specimen was applied between the PWAS transducers pairs. Damage indexes were calculated and correlated with actual crack growth. The paper finishes with conclusions and suggestions for further work.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.101-113
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• 2006

Structural health monitoring results obtained with the electro-mechanical (E/M) impedance techniqueand Lamb wave transmission methods during fatigue crack propagation of an Arcan specimen instrumented with piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) are presented. The specimen was subjected in mixed-mode fatigue loading and a crack was propagated in stages. At each stage, an image of the crack and the location of the crack tip were recorded and the PWAS readings were taken. Hence, the crack-growth in the specimen could be correlated with the PWAS readings. The E/M impedance signature was recorded in the 100 - 500 kHz frequency range. The Lamb-wave transmission method used the pitch-catch approach with a 3-count sine tone burst of 474 kHz transmitted and received between various PWAS pairs. Fatigue loading was applied to initiate and propagate the crack damage of controlled magnitude. As damage progressed, the E/M impedance signatures and the waveforms received by receivers were recorded at predetermined intervals and compared. Data analysis indicated that both the E/M impedance signatures and the Lamb-wave transmission signatures are modified by the crack progression. Damage index values were observed to increase as the crack damage increases. These experiments demonstrated that the use of PWAS in conjunction with the E/M impedance and the Lamb-wave transmission is a potentially powerful tool for crack damage detection and monitoring in structural elements.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.1 no.2 s.2
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• pp.60-72
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• 2005

The effect of alkaline pre-treatment on the solubilization of waste activated sludge(WAS) was investigated, and the biodegradability of WAS, pretreated WAS, [PWAS], food waste and two types of mixture were estimated by biochemical methane potential [BMP] test at $35^{\circ}C$. The biodegradability of PWAS and mixture waste were significantly improved due to the effect of alkaline hydrolysis of WAS. An alkaline pre-treatment was identified to be one of the useful pre-treatment for improving biodegradability of WAS and mixture waste. In high-rate anaerobic co-digestion system coordinate with an alkaline pre-treatment in process, the digesters were operated at the HRT of 5, 7, 10 and 13 days with a mixture of FW $50\%\;and\;PWAS\;50\%,\;$In term of $CH_4$ content, VS removal and specific methane production [SMP] which are the parameters in the performance of digester, the optimum operating condition was found to be a HRT of 7 days and a OLR of 4.20g/L-day with the highest SMP of 0.340 L $CH_4/g$ VS.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.157-174
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• 2020

The guided wave technique is commonly used in structural health monitoring as the guided waves can propagate far in the structures without much energy loss. The guided waves are conventionally generated by the surface-mounted piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS). However, there is still lack of understanding of the wave propagation in layered structures, especially in structures made of anisotropic materials such as carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. In this paper, the Rayleigh-Lamb wave strain tuning curves in a PWAS-mounted unidirectional CFRP plate are analytically derived using the normal mode expansion (NME) method. The excitation frequency spectrum is then multiplied by the tuning curves to calculate the frequency response spectrum. The corresponding time domain responses are obtained through the inverse Fourier transform. The theoretical calculations are validated through finite element analysis and an experimental study. The PWAS responses under the free, debonded and bonded CFRP conditions are investigated and compared. The results demonstrate that the amplitude and travelling time of wave packet can be used to evaluate the CFRP bonding conditions. The method can work on a baseline-free manner.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.361-369
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• 2017

Electromechanical impedance method as an efficient tool in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) utilizes the electromechanical impedance of piezoelectric materials which is directly related to the mechanical impedance of the host structure and will be affected by damages. In this paper, electromechanical impedance of piezoelectric patches attached to simply support rectangular plate is determined theoretically and experimentally in order to detect damage. A pairs of piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) patches are used on top and bottom of an aluminum plate to generate pure bending. The analytical model and experiments are carried out both for undamaged and damaged plates. To validate theoretical models, the electromechanical impedances of PWAS for undamaged and damaged plate using theoretical models are compared with those obtained experimentally. Both theoretical and experimental results demonstrate that by crack generation and intensifying this crack, natural frequency of structure decreases. Finally, in order to evaluate damage severity, damage metrics such as Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD), Mean Absolute Percentage Deviation (MAPD), and Correlation Coefficient Deviation (CCD) are used based on experimental results. The results show that generation of crack and crack depth increasing can be detectable by CCD.

• Journal of the Korean Graphic Arts Communication Society
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 1990

$\alpha$,$\beta$,$\varepsilon$ type copper phthalocy $\alpha$,$\beta$,$\varepsilon$ type copper phthalocyanine(CuPc) pigment was purified by a simple train sublimation technique. The layered photoconductor was made with $\varepsilon$ type CuPc as a carrier generation layer(CGL) and polyvinly carvazol(PVCz) as a carrier transport layer(CLT). A CGL of CuPc was electrochemical deposited on an Al substrate used as cathode in pigment dispersion solutions. a CTL of PVCz pwas spin coated on $\varepsilon$ type CuPc thin film by a spin coater. The effect of sonication time, electrophotographic property of the layered photoconductor were studied with surface coverage, surface potential and sensitivity.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.185-215
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• 2005

Advanced signal processing techniques have been long introduced and widely used in structural health monitoring (SHM) and nondestructive evaluation (NDE). In our research, we applied several signal processing approaches for our embedded ultrasonic structural radar (EUSR) system to obtain improved damage detection results. The EUSR algorithm was developed to detect defects within a large area of a thin-plate specimen using a piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) array. In the EUSR, the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) was first applied for signal de-noising. Secondly, after constructing the EUSR data, the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) were used for the time-frequency analysis. Then the results were compared thereafter. We eventually chose continuous wavelet transform to filter out from the original signal the component with the excitation signal's frequency. Third, cross correlation method and Hilbert transform were applied to A-scan signals to extract the time of flight (TOF) of the wave packets from the crack. Finally, the Hilbert transform was again applied to the EUSR data to extract the envelopes for final inspection result visualization. The EUSR system was implemented in LabVIEW. Several laboratory experiments have been conducted and have verified that, with the advanced signal processing approaches, the EUSR has enhanced damage detection ability.