Preparation and Properties of Flexible 0-3 Polymer-Piezoelectric Composites

Wind turbine blades and aircraft wings are mainly composed of large-area curved plate-like structures. The structure health monitoring (SHM) technology based on Lamb waves which are sensitive in detecting minor damage is promising. Traditional Lamb wave sensors are generally made of piezoelectric ceramics (PZT). Because of their brittleness and hardness, such PZT sensors are not suitable for curved structures. A new type of flexible 0-3 piezoelectric composite was prepared by combining PZT particles with epoxy resin in this paper. The influence of the mass ratio of PZT particles and epoxy resin, polarization electric field, polarization temperature, and polarization time on the material properties were investigated by using orthogonal experiment method. Experimental tests were performed to explore the dynamic response properties of the fabricated composite material. The response voltage amplitudes under different excitation frequencies were compared with MFC, PVDF, and PZT disc. It is applied to curved plate and the damage detection is carried out by using elliptic imaging algorithm. The results show that the 0-3 piezoelectric composite presents good sensing response characteristics. It is significant for the curved plate-like structure in SHM applications.