Simulation Method of an Expandable Lamb Wave Sensor Network for Aircraft Smart Skin

In order to realize a large-scale and lightweight Lamb wave sensor network, which is important to develop aircraft smart skin for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), the expandable sensor network based on the island-interconnect design is a feasible way. However, the analysis of mechanical properties and expandability is the key point to design such sensor network. In this paper, the simulation method of thin island-interconnect structures with arbitrary shape is proposed based on ABAQUS. It includes two key parts. The first is buckling mode analysis to extract buckling modes and corresponding eigenvalues of the structure. The second is postbuckling behavior analysis to analyze mechanical properties of the structure under large tensile deformation, based on a certain buckling mode. The simulation method is not limited by the manufacturing process and can be combined with micro- or nano-manufacturing process or conventional Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC) process. Three simulation cases are given and analyzed, including serpentine, serpentine-based fractal and irregular island-interconnect structure. Based on the fractal island-interconnect structure, an expandable Lamb wave sensor network is designed and manufactured by the FPC process for validation of the simulation method. Results of the tensile test show good agreements with the simulation results. And the sensor network can be applied to Lamb wave-based SHM. The simulation method can provide an effective analysis tool and guidance for further design of expandable sensor networks.