Automatic Sensor-Fault Detection System for Comprehensive Structural Health Monitoring System

摘要

Structural health monitoring systems are viewed as viable means to reduce life-cycle costs, increase structural reliability, and extend the operational hours for a wide variety of composite structures found in numerous air platforms ranging from rotorcraft to unmanned air vehicles. The system enables the constant monitoring of structural integrity and hence provides users with an assessment tool for determining the location and extent of damage, which will eventually develop and grow over time as a result of improper use or normal day-to-day operation. Errors as a result of sensor damage and/or failure could lead to erroneous readings by a built-in diagnostic system such as Acellent's SMART System, which makes use of a network of piezoelectric elements to detect damage in the structure. One of the major challenges of having a reliable structural monitoring system is to distinguish false alarms by sensors that had sustained damage during service from actual working sensors. Typical sensor damage includes sensor breakage, crushing of the sensors, and sensor debond from the host structure. This paper will discuss preliminary work that had been undertaken to increase the reliability of the SMART System by incorporating a simple circuitry for the purpose of automatic sensor fault isolation.