Long term stability and expected performance of a guided wave SHM system

Abstract

Safe operation of aerospace and energy infrastructure relies on manually inspecting plate-like structures. Structural health monitoring with permanently installed, sparse arrays of guided wave sensors promises to automate and increase reliability of maintenance. Temperature compensated subtraction between monitored Lamb wave signals and baselines has enabled detection of <1.5% reflectors in densely featured plates experiencing ambient thermal fluctuation. This work investigates reliability of long term monitoring using this approach through analysis of thermally cycled sensor data and simulations of transducer performance.