Structural Health Monitoring of Aerospace Structures with Sol-Gel Spray Sensors

A new approach is proposed for conducting structural health monitoring, based on newly developed piezoceramic sensors. They are fabricated by a sol-gel spray technique. The potential application of these sensors may be broad. These sensors have been evaluated for structural health monitoring studies. The purpose of the present study aims the detection and the localization of defects by the means of these new piezoceramic sensors. Nine sensors were integrated onto a metallic plate with moving masses. The plate was excited by an impact at a specific location and the vibratory signals from sensors were recorded simultaneously. The analysis of signals obtained from nine locations was correlated with a numerical simulation in order to identify at each time the location of the mass.