Health Monitoring of UAV Wing Skin-to-spar Joints using Guided Waves and Macro Fiber Composite Transducers

This article deals with the monitoring of the composite wing skin-to-spar joint in unmanned aerial vehicles using ultrasonic guided waves. The study investigates simulated wing skin-to-spar joints with two different types of bond defects, namely poorly cured adhesive and disbonded interfaces. The bond-sensitive feature considered is the ultrasonic strength of transmission through the joints. The dispersive wave propagation problem is studied numerically by a semi-analytical finite element method that accounts for viscoelastic damping, and experimentally by ultrasonic testing that uses highly durable, flexible macro fiber composite transducers. The discrete wavelet transform is also employed to de-noise and compress the ultrasonic measurements. Both numerical and experimental tests confirm that the ultrasonic strength of transmission increases across the defected bonds.

[1]  Peter B. Nagy,et al.  Nondestructive evaluation of adhesive joints by guided waves , 1989 .

[2]  Y. Bar-Cohen,et al.  Leaky Lamb Waves for the Ultrasonic Nondestructive Evaluation of Adhesive Bonds , 1990 .

[3]  Peter Cawley,et al.  The applicability of plate wave techniques for the inspection of adhesive and diffusion bonded joints , 1994 .

[4]  Pankaj K. Das,et al.  Application of wavelet transform signal processor to ultrasound , 1994, 1994 Proceedings of IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium.

[5]  L. Gavric.  Computation of propagative waves in free rail using a finite element technique , 1995 .

[6]  J. Rose,et al.  Ultrasonic Guided Waves For NDE of Adhesively Bonded Structures , 1995 .

[7]  Zensheu Chang,et al.  Lap-joint inspection using plate waves , 1996, Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring.

[8]  P. Wilcox,et al.  Flexible interdigital PVDF transducers for the generation of Lamb waves in structures , 1997 .

[9]  Tribikram Kundu,et al.  Detection of kissing bonds by Lamb waves , 1998 .

[10]  Joseph L. Rose,et al.  Ultrasonic NDT of titanium diffusion bonding with guided waves , 1998 .

[11]  S. Mallat.  A wavelet tour of signal processing , 1998 .

[12]  Paul H. Mirick,et al.  Low-cost piezocomposite actuator for structural control applications , 2000, Smart Structures.

[13]  L. Jacobs,et al.  Characterization of adhesive bond properties using Lamb waves , 2000 .

[14]  Lowe,et al.  The transmission of Lamb waves across adhesively bonded lap joints , 2000, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[15]  F. Lanza di Scalea,et al.  Ultrasonic Guided Wave Inspection of Bonded Lap Joints: Noncontact Method and Photoelastic Visualization , 2001 .

[16]  M. Lowe,et al.  Guided waves energy velocity in absorbing and non-absorbing plates , 2001 .

[17]  Chuh Mei,et al.  Piezoceramic actuator placement for structural acoustic and vibration control of flat and curved panels , 2001, SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring.

[18]  Laurence J. Jacobs,et al.  Propagation of guided waves in adhesive bonded components , 2002 .

[19]  A. Niklasson,et al.  Elastic guided waves in a layered plate with rectangular cross section. , 2002, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[20]  G. Neau,et al.  Propagation of Lamb waves in anisotropic and absorbing plates: Theoretical derivation and experiments , 2002 .

[21]  W. Staszewski.  Intelligent signal processing for damage detection in composite materials , 2002 .

[22]  W. Keats Wilkie,et al.  An overview of composite actuators with piezoceramic fibers , 2002 .

[23]  Subhendu K. Datta,et al.  Transient ultrasonic guided waves in layered plates with rectangular cross section , 2003 .

[24]  J. Rose,et al.  Guided wave dispersion curves for a bar with an arbitrary cross-section, a rod and rail example. , 2003, Ultrasonics.

[25]  Joseph L. Rose,et al.  Rapid Inspection of Composite Skin-Honeycomb Core Structures with Ultrasonic Guided Waves , 2003 .

[26]  S. Grondel,et al.  Damage assessment in composites by Lamb waves and wavelet coefficients , 2003 .

[27]  Zongqi Sun,et al.  A phased array guided wave approach to adhesive bonding structural integrity analysis , 2003 .

[28]  J. T. Ching,et al.  Piezoelectric Active Sensing for Damage Detection in Pipeline Structures , 2004 .

[29]  S. Finnveden.  Evaluation of modal density and group velocity by a finite element method , 2004 .

[30]  Francesco Lanza di Scalea,et al.  Propagation of ultrasonic guided waves in lap-shear adhesive joints: case of incident a0 Lamb wave. , 2004 .

[31]  Andreas J. Brunner,et al.  Acoustic emission sensor properties of active fibre composite elements compared with commercial acoustic emission sensors , 2004 .

[32]  Francesco Lanza di Scalea,et al.  Propagation of ultrasonic guided waves in lap-shear adhesive joints , 2004, SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring.

[33]  Ming L. Wang,et al.  Interdigitated PVDF transducer for Lamb wave generation and reception , 2005, SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring.

[34]  A. Brunner,et al.  COMPOSITES FROM PIEZOELECTRIC FIBERS AS SENSORS AND EMITTERS FOR ACOUSTIC APPLICATIONS * , 2005 .

[35]  Francesco Lanza di Scalea,et al.  Ultrasonic inspection of multi-wire steel strands with the aid of the wavelet transform , 2005 .

[36]  Andreas J. Schoenecker,et al.  Piezocomposite transducers for smart structures applications , 2005, SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring.

[37]  Ivan Bartoli,et al.  Modeling wave propagation in damped waveguides of arbitrary cross-section , 2006, SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring.