Axial Load Measurement of Bolts with Different Clamping Lengths Based on High-Frequency Ultrasonic ZnO Film Sensor

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 23; no. 7; p. 3712
• Main Authors: Jing, Xuechao, Dai, Hongwei, Xu, Wanli, Zhao, Yue, Zhang, Jun, Yang, Bing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 01.04.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Accuracy; acoustoelasticity; Axial loads; bolt load measurement; Bolts; Calibration; Configurations; effective clamping length; Error analysis; Error correction; Longitudinal waves; Measurement; Piezoelectric films; Propagation; Sensors; Stress measurement; Ultrasonic testing; Ultrasonic transducers; ultrasound; Velocity; Zinc oxide; ZnO piezoelectric film; bolt load measurement; effective clamping length; ZnO piezoelectric film; acoustoelasticity; ultrasound
• DOI: 10.3390/s23073712
• ISSN: 1424-8220

The ultrasonic testing method has been widely used for measuring the axial load of bolts. However, systematic calibrations are prerequisite if specific bolts have different clamping length configurations, which leads to low efficiency and measurement errors. The focus of this work was to measure the axial load of bolts with different clamping lengths by proposing a method of clamping length correction based on piezoelectric films in order to avoid the complicated calibration steps. Firstly, the relationship between longitudinal wave time-of-flight (TOF) and axial load under different clamping lengths was studied to correct the difference between the effective stress length and the actual clamping length. Secondly, the high-frequency ZnO piezoelectric film sensor was fabricated on the bolts to improve the accuracy of longitudinal wave TOF measurement. The results showed that the center frequency of the fabricated ultrasonic sensor reached 25 MHz, which could realize the high precision measurement of TOF. The proposed correction model proved to be effective for decreasing the measurement error below 2.7% in this experiment. In conclusion, the proposed method simplified the calibration procedure for different application configurations of the same bolt and realized the efficient measurement of bolt axial load.