Impact energy identification on a composite plate using basis vectors

In this study, an impact energy identification method based on basis vectors is proposed to estimate the impact location and impact energy using piezoceramic sensors. A large number of parameterized impact experiments have been conducted on a composite plate to illustrate the linear relationship between signal energy and impact energy, which is also revealed by a theoretical analysis. The signal features of stress waves caused by different impactors are analyzed in the frequency domain to obtain a feature vector. A location basis vector including signal power and arrival time has been presented to determine the impact position without the need for the velocity of the stress wave. Furthermore, the energy basis vector has been defined to estimate the impact energy based on the relationship between the impact energy and signal energy. The results of this study show that the proposed method is able to effectively estimate the location and impact energy of the impact source on the composite plate.