Sensitivity-enhancing feedback control–based damage detection in delaminated smart composite plates

Abstract

In this article, we present a sensitivity-enhancing feedback control–based damage detection method for piezoelectric actuator and sensor bonded composite laminates with delamination failures. The present method mainly consists of two parts: delamination modeling and feedback controller design. We first introduce the adopted improved layerwise theory–based mathematical model for delamination modeling with finite element implementation. The obtained second-order governing equations are transformed into the state space model for design of state feedback controller. Proper pole placement is required to enhance the sensitivity of frequency shifts to stiffness change caused by delamination. We investigated different delamination interfaces and longitudinal locations for studying the feasibility and efficiency of the present method. The present results clearly demonstrate that with the applied state feedback controller, the frequency shifts of the closed-loop system are significantly enhanced. The proposed sensitivity-enhancing feedback control can be used as an efficient tool for detecting delamination failures in smart composite structures.