Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on Aug. 14, 2009). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta." Includes bibliographical references.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-02T11:16:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2013-12-09Bitstream added on 2014-12-02T11:20:57Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000795889.pdf: 2649056 bytes, checksum: 4492988ba817b08a9f8721edf0f1a6d1 (MD5) / Este trabalho apresenta o estudo da propagação de ondas em estruturas unidimensionais, como barras e vigas, bem como a metodologia utilizada para a análise de resposta das ondas quando submetidas a descontinuidades estruturais. A motivação deste projeto é o Monitoramento da Integridade Estrutural, SHM, técnica utilizada em engenharia para detectar a presença de falhas em estruturas mecânicas em vários tipos de indústrias como: civis, automobilísticas, aeronáuticas, evitando, assim, problemas futuros e gastos monetários. Existem diversas técnicas para a aplicação de SHM, uma delas utiliza a propagação de ondas. A utilização de ondas é uma ferramenta bastante procurada por empresas atualmente por ser uma técnica não destrutiva e por caracterizar descontinuidades geométricas. Ondas elásticas dispersam sua energia quando encontram uma descontinuidade, portanto, é possível observar o que acontece nesta divisão através dos coeficientes de reflexão e transmissão. Neste contexto, estes coeficientes são modelados e estudados em duas situações: com ondas longitudinais guiadas por barras e com ondas de flexão guiadas por vigas. Neste trabalho, são modelados diferentes tipos de falhas com arranjos de elementos básicos da mecânica: massa, mola e amortecedor. Os dois tipos de ondas submetidas a esses elementos possuem características específicas observadas inclusive no modelamento matemático. Adicionalmente, elaboram-se estruturas com descontinuidade geométrica para aplicação e correlação dos modelos previamente desenvolvidos visando uma relação de frequências de excitação necessárias para qualificação de diferentes formas de descontinuidades localizada para estrutura de material definido / This work presents a study on wave propagation in one-dimensional structures, such as rods and beams, and analyses the effects of structural discontinuities on wave motion. The motivation of this project is the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), technique used in engineering to detect the presence of damage in mechanical structures in several types of industries like: civil, automobile, aeronautical, thus, avoiding future problems and financial costs. There are several techniques for SHM application, and some of them use wave propagation. The use of waves is a tool sought by companies as a non-destructive technique and for being able to characterise geometric discontinuities. Elastic waves scatter their energy when they reach a discontinuity, and this is characterised by the reflection and transmission coefficients of the discontinuity. In this context, these coefficients are studied for two situations: with longitudinal waves guided by rods and with bending waves guided by beams. In this work, two different types of damage are modelled through basic mechanical elements such as mass, spring and damper. Additionally, structures with geometric discontinuity are investigated and compared with the models previously developed in order to gain physical insight into their dynamic behaviour

La demande croissante d’électricité, notamment renouvelable, entraîne une croissance de l’éolien avec l’utilisation de pales en composite de plus en plus grandes. Pour réduire le cout de maintenance de ces structures composites, le suivi de santé structurel (SHM) au cours du temps permet d’évaluer le comportement de la structure, d’anticiper les dégradations et la maintenance. Dans ce cadre, le développement de capteurs, à base de résine époxy et de nanotubes de carbone, appelés Quantum Resistive Sensor (QRS), est présenté. Les QRS peuvent être attachés à la surface de la structure ou intégrés à cœur durant la séquence de drapage. Durant la polymérisation de la résine, le comportement électrique du QRS traduit l’évolution de la réticulation et de la température dans la structure. Suite au processus de fabrication, l’influence des paramètres extérieurs (température, humidité, vitesse de déformation, coefficient de Poisson…) sur les caractéristiques des QRS a été étudiée. Durant l’utilisation de la structure composite, les QRS ont également permis la détection et la propagation d’endommagements jusqu’à la fracture ultime. Les QRS représentent donc une solution potentielle comme capteurs SHM non intrusifs, permettant un suivi de la structure, de sa fabrication jusqu’à sa dégradation finale. / The growing demands for electrical energy, especially renewable, is boosting the development of wind turbines equipped with longer composite blades. To reduce the maintenance cost of such huge composite parts, the structural health monitoring (SHM) is an approach to anticipate and/or follow the structural behaviour along time. To do so, a proper instrumentation is necessary and has to be as less intrusive as possible. To this end, the development of carbon nanotube- epoxy Quantum Resistive Sensor (QRS) is presented. QRS can be as well glued on the surface or embedded in the core of the composite structure during the stacking sequence. During manufacturing, both the temperature and resin crosslinking can be detected with the change in the QRS electrical characteristics. Once the structural part is made, the effect of the external parameters (strain rate, temperature, humidity, Poisson ratio…) on the electrical characteristics of QRS has been studied. During the composite life, the QRS electrical behaviour has also demonstrate its capability to detect the initiation and propagation of damage until final failure. A non-intrusive monitoring with QRS of the structure life cycle, from manufacturing until final breakage is therefore possible.

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a process of implementing a damage identification procedure for mechanical, aerospace and civil engineering infrastructure. Any change in the geometric properties, boundary conditions and behavior of material is defined as damage of these systems. In the past 10 years, there has been an accelerated increase in the amount of research related to SHM [1]. Hence, the increased interest in SHM to a wide range of industries and its correlated capability for significant life-safety and economic benefits has motivated the need for this thesis topic. The objective of this thesis study was to explore SHM approach to monitor and detect a change and/or damage in plates using Lamb wave propagation and surface response to excitation. First, the endurance of sensors and the adhesive used was evaluated. Next, the experimental data from the prepared samples was collected, compared, and evaluated. The obtained results indicated the severity and location of the defects.

Composite materials are in use in several applications, for example, aircraft structural components, because of their light weight and high strength. However the delamination which is one of the serious defects often develops and propagates due to vibration during the service of the structure. The presence of this defect warrants the design life of the structure and the safety. Hence the presence of such defect has to be detected in time to plan the remedial action well in advance. There are a number of methods in the literature for damage detection. They are either 'baseline free/reference free method' or using the data from the healthy structure for damage detection. However very limited vibration-based methods are available in the literature for delamination detection in composite structures. Many of these methods are just simulated studies without experimental validation. Grossly 2 kinds of the approaches have been suggested in the literature, one related to low frequency methods and other high frequency methods. In low frequency approaches, the change in the modal parameters, curvatures, etc. is compared with the healthy structure as the reference, however in the high frequency approaches, excitation of structures at higher modes of the order of few kHz or more needed with distributed sensors to map the deflection for identification of delamination. Use of high frequency methods imposes the limitations on the use of the conventional electromagnetic shaker and vibration sensors, whereas the low frequency methods may not be feasible for practical purpose because it often requires data from the healthy state which may not be available for old structures. Hence the objective of this research is to develop a novel reference-free method which can just use the vibration responses at a few lower modes using a conventional shaker and vibration sensors (accelerometers/laser vibrometers). It is believed that the delaminated layers will interact nonlinearly when excited externally. Hence this mechanism has been utilised in the numerical simulations and the experiments on the healthy and delaminated composite plates. Two methods have been developed here - first method can quickly identify the presence of the delamination when excited at just few lower modes and other method identify the location once the presence of the delamination is confirmed. In the first approach an averaged normalised RMS has been suggested and experimentally validated for this purpose. Latter the vibration data have then been analysed further to identify the location of delamination and its size. Initially, the measured acceleration responses from the composite plates have been differentiated twice to amplify the nonlinear interaction clearly in case of delaminated plate and then kurtosis was calculated at each measured location to identify the delamination location. The method has further been simplified by just using the harmonics in the measured responses to identify the location. The thesis presents the process of the development of the novel methods, details of analysis, observations and results.

No description available.

A thin wire Ag/AgCl reference electrode was prepared using 50 μm Ag wire in dilute FeCl3. The wire was embedded beneath the polyurethane topcoat of two sacrificial coating systems to monitor their corrosion potential. This is the first report of a reference electrode embedded between organic coating layers to monitor substrate health. The embedded reference electrode (ERE) successfully monitored the corrosion potential of Mg primer on AA 2024-T3 for 800 days of constant immersion in dilute Harrison’s solution. Zn primer on steel had low accuracy in comparison. This is in part due to short circuiting by Zn oxidation products, which are much more conductive than Mg corrosion products. Data interpretation was improved through statistical analysis. On average, ERE corrosion potentials are 0.1 to 0.2 V and 0.2 to 0.3 V more positive than a saturated calomel electrode (SCE) in solution for AA 2024-T3 and steel coating systems, respectively. Further research may confirm that ERE obtains corrosion potential information not possible by an exterior, conventional reference electrode. The ERE is stable under polarization. AA 2024-T3 was polarized to -0.95 V vs ERE to emulate controlled potential cathodic protection (CPCP) applications. Polarizations of -0.75 V vs ERE are recommended for future experiments to minimize cathodic delamination. The ERE was utilized to analyze coating mixtures of lithium carbonate, magnesium nitrate, and Mg metal on AA2024-T3. Corrosion potential, low frequency impedance by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and noise resistance by electrochemical noise method (ENM) were reported. Coating performance ranking is consistent with standard electrochemical characterization and visual analyses. The results suggest anti-corrosion resistance superior to a standard Mg primer following 1600 hours of B117 salt spray. Both lithium carbonate and magnesium nitrate are necessary to achieve corrosion protection. Unique corrosion protective coatings for aluminum could be designed through continued mixture optimization. The Ag wire ERE has been utilized for the characterization and ranking of experimental coatings on metal substrates. Structural health monitoring and corrosion potential feedback of cathodic protection systems are additional uses. There is some indication that CPCP may be applied by ERE to control the substrate polarization for an organic coating system.

Fiber-reinforced composite (FRC) materials are ideal for the aerospace and automotive industries which require high-strength structures with exceptional specific properties. The unfortunate reality is composite materials are susceptible to complex failure modes and difficult-to-predict damage growth as a result of their heterogeneity and anisotropy. Thus, robust structural health monitoring (SHM) for in-operation tracking of damage formation and accumulation is important for these materials. Self-sensing materials are a strong candidate to replace traditional composite SHM because they do not suffer from the disadvantages of point-based sensing. The piezoresistive effect in nanofiller-modified materials is a common approach to material self-sensing. Research to date in piezoresistivity has predominantly focused on the direct current (DC) response of such materials. This is an important limitation because alternating current (AC) has important advantages – it inherently possesses more information (AC data can relate both impedance magnitude and phase to damage), AC effects can be leveraged for improved damage sensitivity, and AC interrogation can reduce power requirements. Therefore, to develop knowledge that will facilitate the transition to AC, this work explores the effect of high-cycle<br>fatigue loading on the AC response of carbon nanofiber (CNF)-modified glass fiber/epoxy laminates. In this study, impedance magnitude and phase angle are measured along the length and through the thickness of composite specimens with an open-hole stress concentration<br>subjected to tension fatigue-loading up to 10 MHz. The collected impedance data is fit to an equivalent circuit model as a function of cycle. These results show that high-cycle fatigue loading does indeed have an appreciable effect on the equivalent circuit behavior of the material. However, clear and definitive trends were not observed thereby suggesting that further research is needed into the basic mechanisms of AC transport in nanocomposites if frequency-dependent transport is to be used to track fatigue loading. <br>

As the use of polymer matrix composites for structures increases, there is a growing need for monitoring these structures. Distributed strain sensing using optical fibers shows promise for monitoring composite structures due to optical fiber's small size, light weight, and ability to obtain continuously distributed strain data. This study investigates the feasibility of using embedded optical fibers using two case studies: embedding the fibers in the adhesive layer of double lap shear composite specimens, and within composite end-notched flexure specimens to locate a growing crack front. To establish a repeatable fabrication methodology, manufacturing techniques for embedding the optical fibers were investigated. The measured strain distribution from the optical fibers compares well with data obtained from finite element analyses for both the double lap shear and end-notch flexure specimens. Additionally, the embedded optical fibers do not seem to impact the failure loads or fracture behavior of the specimens.

The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate the ability to design health monitoring systems from a systematic perspective and how, with proper sensor and actuator placement, damage occurring in a structure can be detected and tracked. To this end, a design optimization was performed to determine the best locations to excite the structure and to collect data while using the minimum number of sensors. The type of sensors used in this design optimization was uni-axis accelerometers. It should be noted that the design techniques presented here are not limited to accelerometers. Instead, they allow for any type of sensor (thermal, strain, electromagnetic, etc.) and will find the optimal locations with respect to defined objective functions (sensitivity, cost, etc.). The use of model-based optimization techniques for the design of the monitoring system is driven by the desire to obtain the best performance possible from the system given what is known about the system prior to implementation. The use of a model is more systematic than human judgment and is able to take far more into account by using information about the dynamical response of a system than even an experienced structural engineer. It is understood in the context of structural modeling that no model is 100\% accurate and that any designs produced using model-based techniques should be tolerant to modeling errors. Demonstrations performed in the past have shown that poorly placed sensors can be very insensitive to damage development. To perform the optimization, a multi-objective genetic algorithm (GA) was employed. The objectives of the optimization were to be highly sensitive to damage occurring in potential “hot spots” while also maintaining the ability to detect damage occurring elsewhere in the structure and maintaining robustness to modeling errors. Two other objectives were to minimize the number of sensors and actuators used. The optimization only considered placing accelerometers, but it could have considered different type of sensors (i.e. strain, magneto-restrictive) or any combination thereof.