Guided Wave Based Damage Detection in a Composite Plate with an Opening

Abstract

This work reports on damage detection in a composite plate with an opening. A composite plate with an opening is manufactured and sensorized to investigate the effect of the opening on the wave propagation as well as the reliability of the delay and sum damage detection method in the presence of the opening. The plate was then impacted with a drop mass to cause barely visible impact damage and sensor data are gathered to analyze the diagnosis. The results show that if all the sensors around the opening is used, even though damage can be detected, it cannot be localized accurately. Further investigation shows that by localizing the sensor network to the one close to the damage area (multi-level detection), damage can be both detected and localized reliably. The results of the detection are also compared with the maximum coverage area map to validate the optimal sensor selection strategy.