Repair of notched beam under dynamic load using piezoelectric patch

In this paper, the repair of a cracked beam under an external dynamic load employing the electro-mechanical characteristic of piezoelectric material to induce a local moment is presented. Conceptually, an external voltage is applied to actuate a piezoelectric patch bonded on the beam to effect closure of a crack so that the singularity at the crack tip under dynamic load may be decreased. Globally, this has the effect of altering the resonant frequency of the cracked beam towards that of the healthy beam, which is the criterion used for the repair. To demonstrate the repair methodology, a cantilever beam is used as an illustration, where the repair moment coefficient and the voltage required are mathematically derived. The relationship between repair moment coefficient, crack parameters and length of piezoelectric patch is investigated. The difference between the proposed repair criterion and an earlier published criterion for cracked beam under static load is also shown. A numerical example is used to study the effectiveness of the proposed repair methodology and its results are compared with those from 3-D finite element analyses using ABAQUS 6.4 as one means of verification.