Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 19933–19943 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings 2214-7853 © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of Materials Processing and characterization. ICMPC_2018 Electromechanical Admittance Signature Analysis of Piezo-ceramic Transducers for NDE Akshay S. K. Naidu* Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Methodist College of Engineering and Technology (Osmania University), Abids, Hyderabad 500001 INDIA Abstract Of the multiple applications of the piezoelectric ceramics transducers such as Lead-Zirconate-Titanate (PZT), one prominent one is in the field of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) using the Electromechanical Impedance method (EMI). In this method a piezo-ceramic transducer (PZT) is bonded on to the structure and actuated using a harmonic voltage at ultrasonic frequency ranges. The dynamics of the PZT-structure interaction is captured in the frequency response of the electrical admittance of the PZT, popularly called as the admittance signature. A mechanical damage in the structure alters the mass, stiffness and damping properties locally, which in turn alters the admittance signature. Many analytical and semi-analytical models of the EMI method that have been used are limited in application to simple systems. The coupled-field finite element modeling has been demonstrated to quite accurately predict the admittance signatures as obtained by the experimental EMI technique. This paper presents the results of identification and quantification studies of damage using the analysis of admittance signatures obtained by coupled-field FE model of a simple cantilever type plate in ANSYS TM . © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of Materials Processing and characterization. Keywords: Piezoelectric ceramic transducer; Lead-Zirconate-Titanante (PZT), Electromechanical Impedance (EMI) ; Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE); Coupled-field FE analysis 1. Introduction An emerging non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique with the potential of real time, online and automated monitoring of the health of machinery and structures is the electromechanical impedance (EMI) method. The * Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-9959852225 E-mail address: akshaynaidu@methodist.edu.in