Structural damage analysis on a typical aeronautical structure using piezoelectric devices19th AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference

The present work relates to the assessment and testing of an experimental based technique devoted to the structural incipient damage detection and location. The technique bases its fundamentals on experimental FRF's comparison and manipulation so to extract a damage index (DI) value as correlated as possible with the real modification of the structure. In this work an application of such a procedure on a typical aeronautical structure has been investigated. A cross talking configuration with separate locations for actuators and sensors for the FRF's acquisition has been chosen and piezoceramic patches has been selected as both devices. To verify the sensibility of the technique to reveal and locate a typical shear clip damage, a set of rivets have been successively cut in the area surrounding the frame shear clip. The analysis of the data showed a good sensibility of the system to identify the presence of a damage with maximum values of the DI in the sensor closest to the damage location and with a absolute value of the index growing up with damage extension.