Experimental Research on the Health Monitoring of the Composite Patch System Using Lamb Waves

Abstract

This paper describes an experimental study on the use of Lamb wave propagation for the integrity assessment of the composite patch system. Composite repairs are performed to the cracked specimen. Two piezoelectric sensors were installed around the composite patch. The piezoelectric sensor response was recorded periodically during the fatigue test. Three types of the damage index based upon the piezoelectric sensor response were selected and calculated to describe the health of the composite patch system. The results show that the damage index based upon the waveform relativity has the best correlations with the expanding process of the damage of the composite patch system.