Electromechanical Impedance Based SHM System for Aviation Applications

This paper concerns an approach based on the electromechanical impedance for damage detection and monitoring of aircraft components. In the introductory part of the paper the theory of proposed method and the characteristics of elaborated structural health monitoring system are briefly described. Afterwards, applications of described system applied to damage detection in different aircraft components are presented. First, the process of monitoring of bolted joints localized in the fuselage is described and effectiveness of this process is discussed. In the application four PZT patches were used to track a torque decrease in three joints. The latter application deals with monitoring of riveted engine housing made of aluminium. Introduced notch was monitored with two MFC transducers. In both mentioned cases the frequency characteristics of measured impedance were compared using different deterministic and statistical damage indexes.