Application of Piezoelectric Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring in Aerospace

Abstract

This paper deals with an innovative approach for SHM with piezoelectric elements utilized as active sensors. The increasing interest in reduction of maintenance costs of aircrafts can be solved by embedding permanent and self-sufficient monitoring networks into the structure of the aircraft in order to prevent structural failures. Piezoelectric elements are currently undergoing a rapid development and due to their inexpensive and non-intrusive nature, they can be used to assemble such monitoring networks. The proposed method utilizes a virtual model of the structure to pinpoint suitable locations for the sensors with respect to the requirement of local and global SHM, serving as an initial point for further research to describe behaviour of the structure during operation and predict any inadmissible state.