Online Piezoelectric Sensing of Lightinging Strike-Induced Guided Wave Responses in Composite Structures

The importance of online lightning strike monitoring for aircraft carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composite structures has been increasingly recognized. However, due to the harsh lightning environment, the lightning strike events, usually tested by special equipment in laboratories, are very hard to be detected online. The online monitoring problem could be resolved by guided wave detection technology, which relies on the reliable online sensing of lightning strike-induced guided wave responses. In this paper, the online sensing of lightning strike-induced guided wave responses with piezoelectric (PZT) wafers is studied. The basic principle of online piezoelectric sensing of lightning strike-induced guided wave responses is firstly analyzed. Then, the reliable online piezoelectric-sensing method of guided wave responses under harsh lightning strike circumstance is developed. A lightning strike experiment on a CFRP composite plate is finally arranged to validate the proposed online piezoelectric-sensing method.