Structural-Damage Detection by Distributed Piezoelectric Transducers and Tuned Electric Circuits

TL;DR

This paper presents a new damage detection method for structures using distributed piezoelectric sensors and tuned electric circuits, enabling accurate and efficient identification of structural damage through purely electrical measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel electric-based damage detection technique that enhances sensitivity and computational efficiency by optimizing auxiliary electric network parameters.

Findings

Method accurately identifies damage location.

Enhanced sensitivity through optimized electric network parameters.

Computational efficiency achieved with prior damage knowledge.

Abstract

A novel technique for damage detection of structures is introduced and discussed. It is based on purely electric measurements of the state variables of an electric network coupled to the main structure through a distributed set of piezoelectric patches. The constitutive parameters of this auxiliary network are optimized to increase the sensitivity of global measurements- as the frequency, response functions relative to selected electric degrees of freedom-with respect to a given class of variations in the structural-mechanical properties. Because the proposed method is based on purely electric input and output measurements, it allows for accurate results in the identification and localization of damages. Use of the electric frequency-response function to identify the mechanical damage leads to nonconvex optimization problems; therefore the proposed sensitivity-enhanced identification procedure becomes computationally efficient if an a priori knowledge about the damage is available.