Rapid evaluation of mechanical boundary conditions using impedance based structural health monitoring

Conventionally, structural health monitoring (SHM) has been primarily concerned with sensing, identifying, locating, and determining the severity of damage present in a structure that is in a static state. Instead, this study will investigate adapting the impedance SHM method to rapidly evaluate a mechanical system during a dynamic event. Also in contrast to conventional SHM, the objective is not to detect damage but instead to detect changes in the boundary conditions as they occur during a dynamic event. Rapid detection of changes in boundary conditions in highly dynamic environments has the potential to be used in a wide variety of applications, including the aerospace, civil, and mining industries. A key feature of this work will be the use of frequency ranges higher than what is typically used for SHM impedance measurements, in the range of several MHz. Using such high frequencies will allow for faster measurements of impedance, thus enabling the capture of variations in boundary conditions as they change during a dynamic event. An existing analytical model from the literature for electromechanical impedance based SHM will be utilized for this study.