Damage detecting roller device based on electromechanical impedance technique for debonding detection in glass fiber epoxy composite structures

Abstract

Maintaining structural safety for the public is one of the most utmost importance for any country around the world to avoid catastrophic events involving human casualty. For this reason, vast amount of research is being conducted around the globe to create an efficient system to detect structure damage. A local damage detection method known as the electromechanical impedance method combined with the new concept introduced in this study allows one to detect delamination of composite structures at a reduced cost. Since the electromechanical impedance requires one to permanently attach the piezoelectric (PZT) transducer onto the target structure, we have made a moving device which creates temporarily contact with the target structure to investigate the possibility of replacing hundreds of PZT transducers into a single device. The idea is test on two different glass fiber epoxy composite plates with different thicknesses to evaluate the performance of the roller PZT device. The results show that with multiple measurements, one can easily detect presence of debonding of composite plates.