Development of a “stick-and-detect” wireless sensor node for fatigue crack detection

A fatigue crack and its precursor often serves as a source of nonlinear mechanism for ultrasonic waves, and nonlinear ultrasonic techniques have been widely studied to detect fatigue crack at its very early stage. In this study, a wireless sensor node based on nonlinear ultrasonics is developed specifically for fatigue crack detection: (1) through packaged piezoelectric transducers, ultrasonic waves at two distinctive frequencies are generated, and their modulation due to a microcrack (less than 0.1 mm in width) is detected; (2) an autonomous reference-free crack detection algorithm is developed and embedded into the sensor node, so that users can simply “stick” the sensor to a target structure and automatically “detect” a fatigue crack without relying on any history data of the target structure; and (3) the whole design of the sensor node is fulfilled in a low-power working strategy. The performance of the sensor node is experimentally validated using aluminum plates with real fatigue cracks and compared with that of a conventional wired system. Furthermore, a field test in Yeongjong Grand Bridge in South Korea has been conducted with the developed sensor nodes.