Smart structure for composite repair

This paper reports on an experimental study aimed at assessing the feasibil ity of detecting damage ill a bonded composite structure by means of surfac e mounted PZT sensor/actuator elements. A boron/epoxy composite patch repai r is artificially degraded through the introduction of teflon inserts at th e bond line. PZT elements attached to the patch and host structure art: the n excited and sensed in both transfer function and self-impedance configura tions and the measurements examined to assess whether bond degradation is d etectable. These measurements indicate that both methods offer good prospec t of detecting debonds however, some limitations have been identified. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.