Experimental Research on Damages Detection of Pipeline Structure by Using PZT-Based Waves

Pipeline structure may generate damages during its service life due to the influence of environment or accidental loading. The damages need to be detected and repaired if they are severe enough to influence the transportation work. Non-destructive detection using smart materials combined with suitable diagonal algorithms are widely used in the field of structural health monitoring (SHM). Piezoelectric ceramics (such as Lead Zirconate Titanate, PZT) is one of the smart materials to be applied in the SHM due to the piezoelectric effect. So far, the PZT-based wave method is widely used for damage detection of structures, in particular, pipeline structures. A series of piezoelectric patches are bonded on the surface of the pipeline structure to monitor the damages such as local crack or effective area reduction due to corrosion by using diagonal waves. The damage of the pipeline structure can be detected by analysis of the received diagonal waves which peak value, phase, and arriving time can be deferent from the health ones. The response of the diagonal wave is not only correlated to the damage location through estimation of the arrival time of the wave peak, but also associated with the peak value of the wave for the reduction of wave energy as the guided wave passing through the damages. Therefore, the presence of damages in the pipeline structure can be detected by investigating the parameter change of the guided waves. The change of the wave parameters represents the attenuation, deflection and mode conversion of the waves due to the damages. In addition, the guided wave has the ability of quick detecting the damage of the pipeline structure and the simplicity of generating and receiving detection waves by using PZT patches. To verify the proposed method, an experiment is designed and tested by using a steel pipe bonded the PZT patches on the surface of it. The PZT patches consist of an array to estimate the location and level of the damage which is simulated by an artificial notch on the surface of the structure. The several locations and deep heights of the notches are considered during the test. A pair of the PZT patches are used at the same time as one is used as an actuator and the other as a sensor, respectively. A tone burst of 5 cycles of wave shape is used during the experiment. A wave generator is applied to create the proposed waves, and the waves are amplified by an amplifier to actuate the PZT patch to emit the diagonal waves with appropriately enough energy. Meanwhile, the other PZT patch is used as a sensor to receive the diagonal signals which contain the information of the damages for processing. For data processing, an index of root mean square deviation (RMSD) of the received data is used to estimate the damage level by compare of the data between the damaged and the health peak valves of the received signals. The time reversal method which aimed at increasing the efficiency of the detection is also used to detect the damage location by estimating the arrival time of the reflected wave passing with a certain velocity. The proposed method experimentally validates that it is effective for application in damage detection of pipeline structure.