Active health monitoring of an aircraft wing with embedded piezoelectric sensor/actuator network: I. Defect detection, localization and growth monitoring

TLDR

Strong attenuation and scattering impede guided waves for large‑area aircraft wing inspection. The study develops an ultrasonic guided‑wave structural health monitoring system for aircraft wing inspection. A real aluminum wing specimen was instrumented with sparse arrays of low‑cost PZT discs that generate and receive ultrasonic guided waves, and pair‑wise through‑transmission baselines were compared to defected signals using the RAPID correlation‑analysis algorithm to detect, size‑estimate, and locate cracks or corrosion. The RAPID algorithm achieved good performance in detecting, sizing, and localizing defects in complex aircraft wing structures.

Abstract

This work focuses on an ultrasonic guided wave structural health monitoring (SHM) system development for aircraft wing inspection. In part I of the study, a detailed description of a real aluminum wing specimen and some preliminary wave propagation tests on the wing panel are presented. Unfortunately, strong attenuation and scattering impede guided waves for large-area inspection. Nevertheless, small, low-cost and light-weight piezoelectric (PZT) discs were bonded to various parts of the aircraft wing, in a form of relatively sparse arrays, for simulated cracks and corrosion monitoring. The PZT discs take turns generating and receiving ultrasonic guided waves. Pair-wise through-transmission waveforms collected at normal conditions served as baselines, and subsequent signals collected at defected conditions such as rivet cracks or corrosion detected the presence of a defect and its location with a novel correlation analysis based technique called RAPID (reconstruction algorithm for probabilistic inspection of defects). The effectiveness of the algorithm was tested with several case studies in a laboratory environment. It showed good performance for defect detection, size estimation and localization in complex aircraft wing structures.