Design and fabrication of composite sandwich plates with piezoelectric wafer for structural health monitoring in rail applications
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Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) offers a promising solution to address the unpredictable failure of composite materials, enhancing their reliability and adoption in the rail industry. For rail applications, piezoelectric composites are highly suitable, as they facilitate the detection and tracking of structural changes, including crack formation and delamination of rail structures. In this study, the performances of a set of piezoelectric sensors embedded in carbon fibre-reinforced composites, at varying volume fractions, will be investigated. The stiffness of each composite specimen will be ascertained and their effects on the monitoring performance of the embedded piezoelectric sensors will be examined. In addition, the geometric position and orientation of the piezoelectric sensing strips will be varied to determine the effect on the health monitoring performance of the composite sandwiched plate. It is expected that the experiments will demonstrate the best specimen that meets the design specifications.