UIC Department of Civil & Materials Engineering
Distinguished Lecture

Thursday, April 15, 2010: 1047ERF, 1:30 pm

Structural Health Monitoring with Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors - Concepts & Applications

Victor Giurgiutiu, Professor, Mechanical Engineering University of South Carolina

Abstract

Piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) are lightweight and inexpensive enablers for a large class of structural health monitoring (SHM) methods such as: (a) embedded guided-wave ultrasonics, i.e., pitch-catch, pulse-echo, phased arrays (b) thickness mode wave propagation; (c) high-frequency modal sensing, i.e., the electro-mechanical (E/M) impedance method; (d) passive detection, i.e., acoustic emission and impact detection.. The presentation will combine the review of PWAS physical principles and modeling concepts with presentation of representative applications for laboratory and in-field SHM. The presentation will end with conclusions and suggestions for further work.

Bio

Dr. Victor Giurgiutiu is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Carolina and Director of the Laboratory for Adaptive Materials and Smart Structures. His structural mechanics interests span active materials, smart structures, structural health monitoring, mechatronics, and other multi-physics applications. Dr. Giurgiutiu has published several books and book chapters and many journal articles and conference papers. He is Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and of ASME. He serves as Associate Editor to several international journals (Aeronautical Journal of RAeS; Structural Health Monitoring; Aerospace Engineering). Dr. Giurgiutiu received his PhD degree in aeronautical structures from Imperial College, London, UK in 1977.