Fatigue damage prognosis using piezoelectric transducers

• Main Author: Tay, Yuh Sheng.
• Other Authors: Soh Chee Kiong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Structures and design
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/49079
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Fatigue occurs due to cyclic loadings and may cause catastrophic damages if not rectified in time. It is thus important to monitor and predict the remaining useful life span of materials to avoid unwanted losses in equipments and human lives. Traditional inspection methods which are time consuming and require robust equipments are no more sufficient for the requirements of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). This research study puts its emphasis in developing a damage prognosis model to come up with a prediction of the growth of fatigue crack. Subsequently, the remaining useful life span may be evaluated. A damage index having a relationship with the remaining useful life span is also proposed by the author, followed by experimental and numerical studies to investigate on the practicability of damage prognosis by using piezoelectric transducers. As there are still some discrepancies in the proposed method and damage index, further work is required to improve on the consistency of damage index so that the remaining useful life span can be predicted at a higher confidence level.