Damage detecting roller device based on electromechanical impedance technique for debonding detection in glass fiber epoxy composite structures

Maintaining structural safety for the public is one of the most utmost importance to avoid catastrophic events involving human casualty. For this reason, vast amount of research is being conducted around the globe to create an efficient system to detect structure damage. In this study, a local damage detection method known as the electromechanical impedance method is improved with the new concept introduced in this study. The idea allows one to detect debonding of composite structures at a reduced cost. Since the electromechanical impedance requires one to permanently attach the piezoelectric (PZT) transducer onto the target structure, a moving device was made which creates temporarily contact with the target structure to investigate the possibility of replacing hundreds of PZT transducers into a single device. The experiment involves using two different glass fiber epoxy composite plates with different thicknesses to evaluate the performance of the roller PZT device. The findings from the experiments show possibility of detecting debonding of composite plate using the proposed idea.