Development of High Performance BS-PT Based Piezoelectric Transducer for Structural Health Monitoring of HighTemperature Polymer-Matrix Composite Structures

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of a new BS-PT based piezoelectric material system for high-temperature SHM applications. The new material system has a high thermal limit with superior piezoelectric responses compared with commercial PZT based and intrinsic BS-PT material systems [1] [2]. With this newly developed material system, our in-house fabricated piezoelectric transducers can remain high piezoelectric responses at high temperatures up to 350°C continuously for at least 10 hours. The transducer signals and the SHM capabilities of these high-temperature piezoelectric transducers at different temperatures were studied and demonstrated on metal plates and in polymer-matrix composites. The good thermal tolerance and the high piezoelectric coefficients of these newly developed transducers can be also observed when the transducers are integrated with structures.