Hole/Crack Identification in Circular Piezoelectric Plates

The piezoelectric material generates an electric field when it is deformed by an external force. On account of this electro-mechanical coupling, piezoelectric material plays an important role in the development of sensors as well as actuators. The governing equations of electro-mechanical characteristics are expressed by extended Stroh formalism. The boundary element method is applied to solve the finite domain problem in which the Green function derived according to boundary conditions is embedded. The essential nonlinear identification problem is solved by using the multiple loading modes and stepwise optimization to search for the global minimum solution. This paper successfully identifies the hole/crack size, location, and orientation in finite circular piezoelectric plates by using the strain/electric field data, stress/electric displacement data, or displacement/electric charge data from static loadings. The numerical results that confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method for hole/crack identification in circular piezoelectric plates are presented in details.