A Review of the Piezoelectric Electromechanical Impedance Based Structural Health Monitoring Technique for Engineering Structures

Piezoelectric Transducers Applied in Structural Health Monitoring: Data Acquisition and Virtual Instrumentation for Electromechanical Impedance Technique

Structural health monitoring using piezoelectric impedance measurements.

This paper presents an overview and recent advances in impedance-based structural health monitoring. The basic principle behind this technique is to apply high-frequency structural excitations (typically greater than 30kHz) through surface-bonded piezoelectric transducers, and measure the impedance of structures by monitoring the current and voltage applied to the piezoelectric transducers. Cha...

Development of a Field-Portable Small-Size Impedance Analyzer for Structural Health Monitoring using the Electromechanical Impedance Technique

Electromechanical (E/M) impedance method is emerging as an effective and powerful technique for structural health monitoring. The E/M impedance method utilizes as its main apparatus an impedance analyzer that reads the in-situ E/M impedance of piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) attached to the monitored structure. Laboratory-type impedance analyzers (e.g. HP4194) are bulky, heavy, and ex...

Refinements of the Impedance-based Structural Health Monitoring Technique

In almost all practical field applications, the structure that is being monitored is constantly undergoing changes due to external boundary and environmental conditions. This change, in most cases, is considered to be normal and a part of the everyday use of the structure. Examples of the factors that lead to this change are loading of the structure, vibration of the structure and change in the...

Refinements of the Impedance-based Structural Health Monitoring Technique

The objective of this chapter is to examine and obtain a better understanding of practical issues that are a result of monitoring the health of structures in an uncontrolled field environment. The effects of external boundary and environmental condition changes and other structural variations on the impedance-based health monitoring technique are investigated. Examples of the factors that consi...