Electromechanical impedance measurement from large structures using a dual piezoelectric transducer

This study develops a new electromechanical (EM) impedance measurement technique specifically for continuous monitoring of large structures. Conventionally, a single surface-mounted lead zirconate titanate (PZT) transducer is often used to measure the EM impedance of a coupled PZT-structure system for damage diagnosis. However, when the target structure is massive, the impedance measurement becomes challenging. In this study, a dual piezoelectric transducer, composed of two separate but concentric PZT segments, is used for effective measurement of the EM impedance from large-scale structures. The impedance measurement using the dual PZT is theoretically formulated and numerically verified. Then, a series of experiments are carried out on a laboratory-size specimen and full-scale bridge and building structures. The experimental results reveal that the proposed technique successfully measures the EM impedance signals from massive structures with a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and good repeatability even when the conventional techniques fail to do so. At the same time, the proposed technique allows low-cost and fast measurement of impedance signals.