Wireless based sensor damage detection system for structural applications

The damage identification in the aircraft structure is an essential process. There are many damage detection methods well established under Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE). Damage is nothing but changes found in the structure or material due to external loading or material defects. The faults/damages in the system/sensors for evaluation of structure or material may severely affects the presence of the damage or performance of the system. In the present study, vibrational energy based NDE method was used. An algorithm was developed to identify the delaminated/damaged sensors. This was further confirmed by the energy levels generated from the healthy and delaminated sensors. Four piezo-electric sensors (PZTs) of dimension 40 × 20 × 1mm were used in the experiment. Texas Instruments based microcontroller is used to read the sensor data through a built-in analog to digital converter. This data is transmitted wirelessly to the receiver which shows the corresponding delaminated/damaged sensor on the four lined LCD.