Lamb Wave Directional Sensing with Piezoelectric Fiber Rosette in Structure Health Monitoring

Abstract

Directional piezoelectric sensors can detect the Lamb wave propagation direction to locate damage in structural health monitoring (SHM). The directivity of the round piezoelectric fiber is exploited with a 0°/45°/90° rosette configuration to acquire flexural Lamb wave signals. The directional response of the piezoelectric fiber under narrowband tone-burst excitation is theoretically deduced. Experimental tests are conducted to demonstrate the directivity and the frequency response property of the piezoelectric fiber under different excitation central frequencies in comparison with the MFC, rectangular piezoelectric sheet, and circular piezoelectric disc. Continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is applied to extract the maximum response amplitude information of the acquired Lamb wave signal at a central frequency. Experimental test results indicate that the piezoelectric fiber is capable to be used as a Lamb wave directional sensor than other piezoelectric sensors. A numerical estimation method for the Lamb wave propagation direction is proposed by defining an error function between the theoretical and experimental normalized response amplitude. The proposed method is generally applicable for different rosette configurations. Experimental results validate the accuracy of the proposed estimation method. The research results are significant to design or select the piezoelectric sensor to measure Lamb wave signals.