PZT Rosettes for AE source location in complex materials

Collaborators

• • Prof. Hyonny Kim, UCSD

  • Prof. Staszewski, AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland 

Funding:

• • Air Force Office of Scientific Research

  • Los Alamos/UCSD Educational Collaboration Program

  • Los Alamos/UCSD Cooperative Agreement in Research and Education (CARE)

Synopsis:

Conventional time-of-flight triangulation of Acoustic Emission (AE) sources leads to inaccurate impact/damage location results when the structure is complex in either material properties (e.g. anisotropic, composite), or in geometry (e.g. multilayers, tapered sections). In these cases, generally, the acoustic wave speed is not constant. We have developed the Piezoelectric Rosette technique to detect the source of an AE (impact or active damage) in complex aerospace panels. The Piezoelectric Rosette technique does not require prior knowledge of material properties (i.e. wave speeds). We are using the flexible Macro-Fiber Composite (MFC) piezoelectric transducer patches in the Rosettes for greater robustness against impacts compared to monolithic PZT disks. We have demonstrated the MFC Piezoelectric Rosette technique for accurate AE source location in variety of Aluminum and composite CFRP panels, both stiffened and unstiffened, and subjected to both low-velocity impacts (hammer, blunt impacts) and high-velocity impacts (ice and wood projectiles lunched from a gas-gun at speeds up to 170 m/sec).

Selected Publications:

C. Nucera, S. White, Z. M. Chen, H. Kim, and F. Lanza di Scalea, “Impact Monitoring In Stiffened Composite Aerospace Panels By Wave Propagation,” Structural Health Monitoring International Journal, 14(6), pp. 547-557, 2015 . 

Kijanka, P., Manohar, A., Lanza di Scalea, F. and Staszewski, W., “Damage Location by Ultrasonic Lamb Waves and Piezoelectric Rosettes”, Journal of Intelligent Materials Systems and Structures, 26(12), pp. 1477-1490, 2015 .

Nucera, C., White, S., Kim, H., and Lanza di Scalea, F., “Piezoelectric Rosettes For Acoustic Source Location In Composite Structures: Results From “Blunt” Impact Tests,” Structural Health Monitoring 2013 – A Roadmap to Intelligent Structures – Proceeding of the 9th Intl Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, F-K. Chang, ed., Stanford University, pp. 2635-2642, Sept. 10-12, 2013.

Lanza di Scalea, F., Kim, H., White, S., Chen, Z., Salamone, S., and Bartoli, I., “Impact Monitoring In Aerospace Panels Via Piezoelectric Rosettes,” Composite Materials and Joining Technologies for Composites, Vol. 7, E. Patterson et al. (eds.), 7 pgs., 2012.

Salamone, S., Bartoli, I., Di Leo, P., Lanza di Scalea, F., Ajovalasit, A., D’Acquisto, L., Rhymer, J., and Kim, H., “High-velocity Impact Location on Aircraft Panels Using Macro-fiber Composite Piezoelectric Rosettes,” Journal of Intelligent Materials Systems and Structures, 21(9), pp. 887-896, 2010.

Matt, H. and Lanza di Scalea, F., “Macro-fiber Composite Piezoelectric Rosettes for Acoustic Source Location in Complex Structures,” Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 16(4), pp. 1489-1499, 2007.