Locating and Imaging Impact Damage with an Integrated System of PZT and Eddy Current Probe

Abstract

This paper presents an integrated system, which combines piezoelectric transducers and eddy current probes, for structural health monitoring of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) materials. The piezoelectric transducers work in the passive mode (waiting for potential impacts) to measure the guided wave generated when the impact occurs. The relative arrival time of the guided wave at the piezoelectric transducers was used to estimate the location of impact based on geometrical relationships. This way an approximate location of the impact damage was obtained by the piezoelectric transducers. However, the result lacks information about the condition of the material after impact. Therefore, eddy current testing (ECT) was carried out to perform a scanning around the location estimated by piezoelectric transducers to evaluate the condition of the CFRP structure. The ECT scans present 2D images of the damaged region.