Coupled field modeling of E/M impedance of piezoelectric wafer active sensor for cataphoretic coating thickness measurement

The cataphoretic electro-coating is one of the most common methods that are used against corrosion as a primary coating layer. The cataphoretic electro-coating is commonly utilized technique especially in protecting of automobile components in automotive industry. This coating method has many advantages such as high corrosion resistance, ability of homogeneous and complete coating of components in any geometry, less pollution, and less risk of ignition. In this study, some specimens in the form of steel sheets coated by the cataphoretic electro-coating method are examined using electro-mechanical impedance spectroscopy (EMIS) method. One of the extensively employed sensor technologies has been permanently installed piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) for in situ continuous structural health monitoring (SHM). Using the transduction of ultrasonic elastic waves into voltage and vice versa, PWAS has been emerged as one of the major SHM sensing technologies. EMIS method has been utilized as a dynamic descriptor of PWAS and the structure on which it is bonded. EMIS of PWAS-structure couple is a high frequency local modal sensing technique by applying standing waves to indicate the response of the PWAS resonator by determining the resonance and anti-resonance frequencies. To simulate the actual EMIS measurements in the present work, two-dimensional and three-dimensional coupled field finite element models are created for both uncoated and coated steel plates in a commercial FEA software, ANSYS (R). The EMIS values of the specimens in certain sizes and coated in different thickness are going to be simulated in broad-band of frequency spectra. The thickness of the coating layer and coating time are of paramount importance for the corrosion resistance. The coating layer thickness and the corresponding coating period will be optimized by analyses of the values obtained from the 2D and 3D EMIS simulations.