Neural potentials and micro-signals of non-linear deep and shallow conical shells

Conventional sensors, such as proximeters and accelerometers, are add-on devices usually adding additional weights to structures and machines. Health monitoring of flexible structures by electroactive smart materials has been investigated over the years. Thin-film piezoelectric material, e.g. polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymeric material, is a lightweight and dynamic sensitive material appearing to be a perfect candidate in monitoring structure’s dynamic state and health status of flexible shell structures with complex geometries. The complexity of shell structures has thwarted the progress in studying the distributed sensing of shell structures. Linear distributed sensing of various structures have been studied, e.g. beams, plates, cylindrical shells, conical shells, spherical shells, paraboloidal shells and toroidal shells. However, distributed microscopic neural signals of non-linear shell structures has not been carried out rigorously. This study is to evaluate microscopic signals, modal voltages and distributed micro-neural signal components of truncated non-linear conical shells laminated with distributed infinitesimal piezoelectric neurons. Signal generation of distributed neuron sensors laminated on conical shells is defined first. The dynamic neural signal of truncated non-linear conical shells consists of microscopic linear and non-linear membrane components and linear bending component based on the von Karman geometric non-linearity. Micro-signals, modal voltages and distributed neural signal components of two different truncated non-linear conical shells are investigated and their sensitivities discussed. r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.