The Use of Exact Lamb Waves Modes for Modeling the Power and Energy Transduction of Structurally-Bonded Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors

This paper presents a theoretical modeling of power and energy transduction of structurally-bonded piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) for structural health monitoring (SHM). After a literature review of the state of the art, we developed a model of power and energy transduction between the PWAS and a structure containing multimodal ultrasonic guided waves. The use of exact Lamb waves modes for power modeling is an extension of our previously presented simplified model that considered axial and flexural waves with low frequency approximation. The model assumptions include: (a) straight-crested multimodal ultrasonic guided wave propagation; (b) ideal bonding (pin-force) connection between PWAS and structure; (c) ideal excitation source at the transmitter PWAS and fully-resistive external load at the receiver PWAS. Frequency response functions are developed for voltage, current, complex power, active power, etc. Multimodal ultrasonic guided wave, normal mode expansion, electromechanical energy transformation of PWAS and structure were considered. The parametric study of PWAS size and impedance match gives the PWAS design guideline for PWAS sensing and power harvesting applications