Development of a remote impact damage identification system

In this paper, an impact damage identification approach is proposed. Based on this approach, a remote impact damage identification system has been developed. The remote identification system consists of hardware and software. The hardware consists of a carbon‐fiber‐reinforced plastic (CFRP) plate with four surface‐mounted piezoelectric sensors, a digital oscilloscope, a local network, a wireless LAN card, and a notebook computer. The software includes a source location algorithm based on fast wavelet transform and an impact load identification algorithm based on impact response inverse analysis. The piezoelectric sensors can detect Lamb wave signals generated by impact load without any amplification. The source location algorithm can reduce the influence of noise in the Lamb wave signals. When the CFRP plate is impacted, the oscilloscope promptly records the impact response signals detected by the mounted piezoelectric sensors, and the computer simultaneously receives the signals via the local network and wireless LAN card from the oscilloscope. The system can remotely identify the impact position and the impact load history with good precision in real time. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.