Optimized piezoelectric sensor for a specific application: Detection of Lamb waves

This work is devoted to the development and the optimization of a new piezoelectric sensor using Lamb waves destined to aerospace structures health monitoring. In such systems, Lamb waves are usually excited and received by thin single piezoelectric transducers. One of the most critical tasks in health monitoring is to identify all the generated Lamb waves in order to ease the damage estimation. A possible solution is to measure the Lamb wave signal at different locations along the propagation direction. So, the development of a distributed sensing technology using metallic multi-electrode deposited on a piezoelectric substrate was a key element, which built the bridge between the sensors signals and the structural integrity interpretation.Firstly, the various manufacture stages of this new sensor by the tape casting technique were reported. Secondly, piezoelectric properties of this sensor were measured by the electrical resonance technique. The sensitivity of this new sensor to the multi-wave generation and the damage detection were then further demonstrated in the case of an aluminum plate.