Simultaneous Influence of Static Load and Temperature on the Electromechanical Signature of Piezoelectric Elements Bonded to Composite Aeronautic Structures

Electromechanical (EM) signature techniques have raised a huge interest in the structural health-monitoring community. These methods aim at assessing structural damages and sensors degradation by analyzing the EM responses of piezoelectric components bonded to aeronautic structures. These structures are subjected simultaneously to static loads and temperature variations that affect the metrics commonly used for damage detection and sensor diagnostics. However, the effects of load and temperature on these metrics have mostly been addressed separately. This paper presents experimentations conducted to investigate the simultaneous influence of static load and temperature on these metrics for two kinds of piezoelectric elements (lead zirconate titanate (PZT) and macrofiber composite (MFC)) bonded on sandwich composite materials, for the full range of real-life conditions encountered in aeronautics. Results obtained indicate that both factors affect the metrics in a coupled manner in particular due to the variations of the mechanical properties of the bonding layer when crossing its glass transition temperature. Furthermore, both piezoelectric elements globally behave similarly when subjected to temperature variations and static loads. Simultaneous accounting of both temperature and static load is thus needed in practice in order to design reliable structural health-monitoring systems based on these metrics.