Title: Smart sensing of damage in flexible plates through MEMS

Authors: Stefano Mariani; Francesco Caimmi; Matteo Bruggi; Paolo Bendiscioli

Addresses: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza L. da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy ' Dipartimento di Chimica, Politecnico di Milano, Materiali e Ingegneria Chimica 'Giulio Natta', Piazza L. da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy ' Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza L. da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy ' STMicroelectronics, MSH Division, Via Tolomeo 1, 20010 Cornaredo, Italy

Abstract: In this work, we present a methodology to monitor the state of damage- or crack-containing flexible plates through low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf MEMS accelerometers. Under quasi-static, time-varying loading conditions we track the evolution of the damaged zone (e.g., the length of an inner crack) accounting for the drift in the compliance of the specimens, measured by means of the magnitude of the load-induced rotation at MEMS position. We then validate this health monitoring methodology, showing that it turns out to be sensitive to the damage and provides results in good accordance with theoretical findings. Next, we propose a technique to optimally deploy the MEMS sensors over the plate. Referring to an isotropic square plate containing damaged zones of reduced bending stiffness, we numerically investigate the sensitivity of the load-induced state (in terms of out-of-plane displacement and rotation of the normal to the mid-plane) to the position of the damaged area, and we adopt a constrained topology optimisation tool to determine the best sensor deployment to efficiently sense the damage.

Keywords: structural health monitoring; microelectromechanical systems; MEMS accelerometers; thin plates; damage; smart sensing; flexible plates; inner cracks; MEMS sensors; constrained topology optimisation; sensor deployment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMRS.2014.064359

International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, 2014 Vol.2 No.1, pp.67 - 95

Received: 04 Jun 2013
Accepted: 02 Feb 2014

Published online: 30 Aug 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article