Nowadays, the electromechanical impedance method has been widely used in the field of structural healthy monitoring, especially for the concrete and steel materials. However, the electromechanical impedance studies on damage detection for timber are limited due to the anisotropic and ununiform biomaterial properties. As a low-cost and environment-friendly building material, timber has been widely used in the construction. Thus, it is beneficial to develop electromechanical impedance technique for structural healthy monitoring of timber so as to ensure the stability and safety of the entire timber structures. In this paper, two damage factors, i.e., the damage location factor and the damage size factor of timber specimens are investigated by using the electromechanical impedance method. The method is implemented by using a patch of Lead Zirconate Titanate transducer both as an actuator to generate stress waves and a sensor to detect stress waves after propagating across the timber specimens. Then, the damage index-root mean square deviation is employed to evaluate the damage severity of the timber specimens. The results indicate that the damage index changes consistently with the change of damage location and size factors, and the proposed method using electromechanical impedance technique can efficiently estimate the damage and its severity.

中文翻译：

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使用机电阻抗（EMI）技术监测木材的结构健康

如今，机电阻抗法已广泛用于结构健康监测领域，尤其是混凝土和钢铁材料。然而，由于各向异性和不均匀的生物材料特性，用于木材损伤检测的机电阻抗研究受到限制。作为一种低成本，环保的建筑材料，木材已广泛用于建筑中。因此，发展机电阻抗技术对木材进行结构健康监测是有益的，以确保整个木材结构的稳定性和安全性。本文采用机电阻抗法研究了木材试样的损伤位置因子和损伤尺寸因子两个损伤因子。该方法通过使用锆钛酸铅换能器片作为执行器来生成应力波，并使用传感器来检测在木材样品上传播后的应力波。然后，使用损伤指数-均方根偏差来评估木材样品的损伤严重程度。结果表明，损伤指数随损伤位置和尺寸因子的变化而变化，所提出的利用机电阻抗技术的方法可以有效地估计损伤及其严重程度。