Piezo-sensor self-diagnostics using electrical impedance measurements.
G. H. Park, Charles R. Farrar, Amanda C. Rutherford, Amy N. Robertson · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2004
This paper present the piezoelectric sensor self-diagnostic procedure that performs in-situ monitoring of the operational status of piezoelectric materials (PZT) used for sensors and actuators in structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. The use of active-sensing piezoelectric materials has received considerable attention in the SHM community. A critical aspect of the piezoelectric active-sensing technologies is that usually large numbers of distributed sensors and actuators are needed to perform the required monitoring process. The sensor/actuator self-diagnostic procedure, where the sensors/actuators are confirmed to be functioning properly during operation, is therefore a critical component to successfully complete the SHM process and to minimize the false indication regarding the structural health. The basis of this procedure is to track the changes in the capacitive value of piezoelectric materials resulting from the sensor failure, which is manifested in the imaginary part of the measured electrical admittances. Furthermore, through the analytical and experimental investigation, it is confirmed that the bonding layer between the PZT and a host structure significantly contributes to the measured capacitive values. Therefore, by monitoring the imaginary part of the admittances, one can quantitatively assess the degradation of the mechanical/electrical properties of the PZT and its attachment to a host structure. This paper concludes with an experimental example to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed sensor-diagnostic procedure.