CRACK SENSORS

A PRESENTATION by:
Aman Nigam (EE21MTECH11011)
Nitish Kumar Singh (EE21MTECH11006)

Supervisor
Dr. SHIV GOVIND SINGH
Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad
FEBRUARY 2021
 OUTLINES

INTRODUCTION

DESIGN

• CRACKMETER DESIGN

• MEMS STRAIN SENSOR DESIGN

EXPERIMENTS
• CRACKMETER PROTOTYPING

• MEMS VACUUM PACKAGING

• SILICON/STEEL MECHANICAL COUPLING

• MEMS STRAIN SENSOR TESTING

REFERENCES
 INTRODUCTION

 Structural Damage Detection at the earliest possible stage is very important.

 There are several detection methods for analyzing the cracks in the structures.
 For crack measurements, until now macroscopic devices were used.
 The problems with macroscopic devices are following :
a) More Power Consumption
b) Cannot be used in places that are hard to reach.
 The solution to the above problems is Silicon-Based MEMS Crack Sensors.
CRACK SENSORS
 DESIGN

 The crackmeter is realized with a thin steel bar fixed across the crack on the tunnel wall.
A multi-directional mems strain sensor is soldered on the top of that metallic strip.(this is shown
in fig(b)).
 A movement of the wall crack (contraction or expansion) can be detected by the sensors through
the strain generated on the steel bar and transferred to the silicon chip.
The resonant mems sensors are operated through a self-sustained electrostatic actuation using an
electronic oscillation loop. That means they do not require bias current for their operation which
implies less power consumption.
these features, together with their high strain sensitivity, make these devices attractive for crack
meters
Fig (a) Fig(b)
 MEMS STRAIN SENSOR DESIGN

One important part of the crackmeter is strain sensor design.

Given below is a typical strain sensor.
Central beam

1st pair of electrodes 2nd pair of electrodes

{drive or actuator} {sensing part}

Fig(c)
 The resonant strain sensor used in the crackmeter forms a h-framework. flexural mode resonator,
which utilizes a central beam to mechanically couple twin clamped-clamped beam resonators
into vibration in the second harmonic mode as illustrated in fig. 3.
 A central beam mechanically couple the twin electrodes. This central beam is called as resonator.
 Whenever the crack expands or contracts then some strain is generated in the steel rod. Which in
turn produces vibrations.
 The resonator is grounded and electrostatically driven into vibration by two interconnected
electrodes and capacitive sensing of the induced displacement is through a pair of similar
interconnected electrodes. This can be seen if fig(c)
 In some cases, piezoelectric effect is responsible for generating current in the circuit. Such
circuits are known as piezoelectric stress sensor.
CRACKMETER PROTOTYPING

 The material used for the steel strip and the anchor was stainless steel AISI 304.
 The steel strip was cut from a 50x50 cm2 , 0.1 mm thick commercial steel stainless steel aisi 304
foil using a mechanical cutting tool.
 The steel strip was equipped by a nut which allows for changing the unstrained length of the
crackmeter.
 The anchors were grinded on the same material starting from a bar with a 16×16 mm2 square
section.
Fig(d): MEMS-based crackmeter prototype (steel parts)
MEMS VACUUM PACKAGING

 in order to ensure an optimal performance of the mems strain sensor, experiments aimed at
achieving a vacuum packaging of the silicon device when bonded to the steel bar have been
carried out.
 for the vacuum packaging, two methods were tested. both were based on the adhesive bonding
of a steel box on the crackmeter bar
 In first method, vacuum was created inside the glued steel box using a rotary pump connected
by means of a glass pipe.
 after the required vacuum level was reached (pressure around 10-3 torr), a methane flame is
used to heat the glass pipe up to its softening temperature.
 the glass pipe was finally cut while still hot so that, after cooling, the pressed part of the pipe
was soldered to vacuum grade.
Heat creates a vacuum and
also softens the glass

After that glass is sealed

And cut the upper part so
That pressure remain intact.
 In second method, instead of the glass pipe a tin-lead tube was used as an inlet for the chamber.

 The tin-lead tube was temporary connected to a glass pipe in order to ease its connection with
the pump.
 Once reached the desired vacuum level, the glass was heated up to roughly 200 °c in order to
melt the tin tube inside.
 As a consequence of tin-lead melting, the metal tube collapsed on the chamber inlet, creating a
vacuum tight sealing.
 The temporary glass pipe can be removed after cooling down to room temperature.
 Several experiments were performed with both methods, and the performance evaluated by
monitoring the vacuum level created inside the chamber for several days after sealing.
The metal soldering method permitted to achieve a higher vacuum level than the glass pipe one
(below 10-1 torr). moreover, this method also demonstrated a higher reliability, since the glass
softening and sealing operation when using the pipe often gave rise to failures due to micro-
cracks formed within the glass.

So, this concludes the crack sensors, thank you.

REFERENCES :

• A method for crack detection in structures using piezoelectric sensors and actuators – by : yong
han, arun k. misra, dan mateescu mechanical engineering department, mcgill university, montreal
quebec Canada
• Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemical_fatigue_crack_sensor
• Youtube.
• M. ferri, s. cristiani, y. kobayashi, k. soga and a. roncaglia, "a packaging technique for silicon
mems strain sensors on steel", proceedings of IEEE sensors 2008, lecce, oct.