Manufacturing and Testing of Active Composite Panels with Embedded Piezoelectric Sensors and Actuators

Abstract

This work presents the manufacturing and testing of active composite panels (ACPs) with embedded piezoelectric sensors and actuators. The composite material employed here is a plain weave carbon/epoxy prepreg fabric with 0.30 mm ply thickness. A cross-ply type stacking sequence is employed for the ACPs. The piezoelectric flexible patches employed here are Active Fiber Composite (AFC) piezoceramics with 0.33 mm thickness. Composite layers with openings are used to fill the space around the embedded piezo patches to minimize the problems associated with ply drops in composites. The AFC piezoceramic patches were embedded inside the composite laminate. High-temperature wires were soldered to the piezo leads, insulated from the carbon substructure by high-temperature materials, and were taken out of the composite laminates employing cutout hole, molded-in hole, and embedding techniques. The laminated ACPs with their embedded piezoelectric sensors and actuators were vacuum bagged and co-cured inside an autoclave employing the cure cycle recommended by the composite material supplier. The Curie temperature of the embedded piezo patches should be well above the curing temperature of the composite materials as was the case here. The capacitance of the piezoelectric patches was measured before and after cure for quality control. The manufactured ACPs were trimmed and then tested for their functionality. A finite element analysis (FEA) model was developed to verify the free expansion of the AFC FEA. Next, the FEA model of the manufactured ACP was developed based on the AFC FEA free expansion model and was employed to test the functionality of the AFCs embedded within the ACPs. Both static and dynamic FEA results of the modeled ACPs showed very good agreements with their corresponding experimental results. Finally, vibration suppression as well as simultaneous vibration suppression and precision positioning tests, using Hybrid Adaptive Control (HAC), were successfully conducted on the manufactured ACP beams and their functionality was further demonstrated. The advantages and disadvantages of ACPs with embedded piezoelectric sensor and actuator patches manufactured employing the abovementioned three wires out techniques are also presented in terms of manufacturing and performance.

Materials that couple sensing, actuation, computation, and communication

“…With this approach, the nodes sample and process highbandwidth information locally and then route high-level information back to a central computer only when important events occur. This example, using embedded MEMS microphones, lends itself to many related material-centric applications such as sound localization (13,35), vibration analysis (36,37), or-when combined with piezo actuators-structural health monitoring (9,(38)(39)(40).…”

A new measurement method of piezoelectric properties of single ceramic fibres

“…1,2,3,4,5 Usually, they are embedded in composites for utilization of their sensoric and/or actuator potential. In the last years the preparation technologies of ceramic fibres with diameters of some hundreds down to 10 m were enhanced and optimized.…”

Strength and fatigue life evaluation of composite laminate with embedded sensors

“…Apart from the strength studies of the structures with embedded sensors, efforts have been made by some researchers to study the performance of these embedded sensors [22,23,25]. Studies done so far on embedded sensors have not report the effect of bending monotonic and fatigue loading on the strength of the structure, especially when embedded with thin film type piezoelectric sensors.…”