STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING BASED ON ELECTROMECHANICAL IMPEDANCE USING THE ORDINARY KRIGING METHOD

The occurrence of structural failures in equipment and civil structures accrues from several factors, such as impact, friction and fatigue, requiring efforts for their correction. However, due to safety risks that such failures represents in the industrial environment, it is necessary to monitor the structures and equipment with the aim of quickly identify the beginning of a failure, which allows preventive measures to be taken in a timely manner. Given this scenario, the Ordinary Kriging was used in this work to interpolate numerical data of damage metric based on electromechanical (E/M) impedance in an aluminum plate. The results shows that the method was able to map the failure areas, in addition to evidences preferred directions of structural failure propagation. Through kriging variance, were mapped areas with sensor (PZTs) deficiency, in such a way that such information could provide guidelines for the establishment of sensor grids in order to determine more appropriate arrangements for collecting information form the analyzed structure. From the results obtained it is necessary to carry out additional research with the purpose of improve the method application, understand its limitations and analyze the feasibility of implantation in the industrial environment.