The Effect of Mounting Structure and Piezoelectric Pressure Probe Sensor Incident Angle on the Free-Field Measurement

Free-field shock wave (FSW) in explosion monitored by electrical wired system with piezoelectric pressure probe sensor (PPPS) has been widely investigated and applied. However, it is very difficult to accomplish accurate pressure measurement for shock wave (SW) due to steep rising edge, short pulse width characteristics of peak pressure signal and different incident angle of SW to sensor. This paper aims to find an approach to integrate the mounting structure with PPPS for the FSW testing more accurately. First, we design two mounting structures namely disc structure and wedge structure for sensor installation and evaluate the impacts of different incident angles of SW on PPPS under two installation structures by simulation. Furthermore, the pressure signals are obtained by two measurement system relying on commercial PPPSs from PCB and Kistler Co., Ltd., respectively, and we reconstruct the overpressure waveform by wired measurement system. The results from the experiment demonstrate that the reconstructed waveforms have good uniformities. Depending on the simulation model and experiment data, this paper is conducted to provide new insights and approach into how the integration of mounting structure and PPPS is implemented for acquiring dynamic parameters accurately, and further giving advisable reference to various sensors and structures applied in more FSW monitoring scenarios.