On The Effect Of Material Uncertainty And Matrix Cracks On Smart Composite Plate

Abstract

Recent developments show the applications of smart structure in different engineering fields. Smart structures can be used for shape and vibration control, structural health monitoring etc. Smart materials can be integrated to composite structure to enhance its abilities. Fiber reinforced composites are the advanced materials of choice in aerospace applications due to its high strength and stiffness, light weight and ability to tailor according to the design requirements. Due to complex manufacturing process and varying operating conditions, composites are susceptible to variation in material properties and damages. The present study focuses on the effect of uncertainties in material properties and damages on a smart composite structure.

A cantilevered composite plate with surface mounted piezoelectric sensor/ actuator is considered in this study. The sensors and the actuators are connected through a conventional feedback controller and the controller is configured for vibration control application. Matrix cracks are considered as damage in the composite plate. To study the effect of material uncertainty, probabilistic analysis is performed considering composite material properties and piezoelectric coefficients as independent Gaussian random variables. Numerical results show that there is substantial change in dynamic response of the smart composite plate due to material uncertainties and damage. Deviation due to material uncertainty and damage can be compensated by actively tuning the feedback control system. Feedback control parameters can be properly adjusted to match the baseline response. Here baseline case represents the response of the undamaged smart composite plate with deterministic material properties. The change in feedback control parameters are identified as damage indicator. Feedback control based damage detection method is proposed for structural health monitoring in smart composite structure and robustness of the method is studied considering material uncertainties.

Fractal dimension based damage detection method is proposed to detect localized matrix cracks in a composite plate with spatially varying material properties. Variation in material properties follows a two dimensional homogeneous Gaussian random field. Fractal dimension is used to extract the damage information from the static response of composite plate with localized matrix cracks. It is found that fractal dimension based approach is capable of detecting the location of the single and multiple damages from the static deflection curve. Robustness of the fractal dimension based damage detection method is studied considering spatial uncertainties in material properties.