Detection of damage in structural waveguides using high frequency waves

• Autor(a) principal: Ayala Castillo, Pedro Christian [UNESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11449/126595; http://www.athena.biblioteca.unesp.br/exlibris/bd/cathedra/13-08-2015/000844021.pdf
• topic: Localização de falhas (Engenharia); Testes não-destrutivos; Monitoramento da integridade estrutural; Structural health monitoring

Wave propagation research for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has been increasing recently. It allows the detection of damage at its early stages of development. This dissertation describes a theoretical study of wave propagation for the purpose of detection and quantification of damage in a beam structure. Of particular interest is the way in which waves interact with damage that is symmetrical with respect to the neutral axis. An analysis of a one-dimensional structural waveguide incorporating a piezoelectric actuator and sensors in a pitch-catch and pulse-echo configuration is presented. The model is developed in the frequency domain, which is then transformed into the time domain using the inverse Fourier transform. This enables the effect of damage on wave propagation between the actuator and the sensor to be investigated in both the time and the frequency domains. The size of the actuator and the sensor, and the size of damage are investigated for a thin aluminum beam. It is shown that the time-domain approach is preferable to a frequency domain approach for damage detection in this kind of structure. It is found that longitudinal waves are more sensitive to a change in thickness for a symmetrical system and it is better to measure reflected rather than transmitted waves. Further, it is found that due to the dispersive nature of bending waves, it is possible in some situations for the reflected wave amplitude to decrease rather than increase as the beam thickness is reduced