Experimental Study of Effect of Temperature Variations on the Impedance Signature of PZT Sensors for Fatigue Crack Detection

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is recognized as an ef fi cient tool to interpret the reliability of a wide variety of infrastructures. To identify the structural abnormality by utilizing the electromechanical coupling property of piezoelectric transducers, the electromechanical impedance (EMI) approach is preferred. However, in real-time SHM applications, the monitored structure is exposed to several varying environmental and operating conditions (EOCs). The previous study has recognized the temperature variations as one of the serious EOCs that affect the optimal performance of the damage inspection process. In this framework, an experimental setup is developed in current research to identify the presence of fatigue crack in stainless steel (304) beam using EMI approach and estimate the effect of temperature variations on the electrical impedance of the piezoelectric sensors. A regular series of experiments are executed in a controlled temperature environment (25°C – 160°C) using 202 V1 Constant Temperature Drying Oven Chamber (Q/TBXR20-2005). It has been observed that the dielectric constant ð " 33 T Þ which is recognized as the temperature-dependent constant of PZT sensor has suf fi ciently in fl uenced the electrical impedance signature. Moreover, the effective frequency shift (EFS) approach is optimized in term of signi fi cant temperature compensation for the current impedance signature of PZT sensor relative to the reference signature at the extended frequency bandwidth of the developed measurement system with better outcomes as compared to the previous literature work. Hence, the current study also deals ef fi ciently with the critical issue of the width of the frequency band for temperature compensation based on the frequency shift in SHM. The results of the experimental study demonstrate that the proposed methodology is quali fi ed for the damage inspection in real-time monitoring applications under the temperature variations. It is capable to exclude one of the major reasons of false fault diag-nosis by compensating the consequence of elevated temperature at extended frequency bandwidth in SHM.