Assessment of delay-and-sum algorithms for damage detection in aluminium and composite plates

Piezoelectric sensors are increasingly being used in active structural health monitoring, due to their durability, light weight and low power consumption. In the present work damage detection and characterization methodologies based on Lamb waves have been evaluated for aircraft panels. The applicability of various proposed delay-and-sum algorithms on isotropic and composite stiffened panels have been investigated, both numerically and experimentally. A numerical model for ultrasonic wave propagation in composite laminates is proposed and compared to signals recorded from experiments. A modified delay-and-sum algorithm is then proposed for detecting impact damage in composite plates with and without a stiffener which is shown to capture and localize damage with only four transducers.