Background <p>Piezoelectric wafer transducers (PWT) are widely used for Lamb wave propagation in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) for damage detection applications and are usually made from Piezo-Ceramic materials (PCM). While PCM-based transducers are in widespread application for Lamb wave propagation in structural elements, they only partially meet the requirements of a sensitive transducer due to their high acoustic impedance, extreme brittleness and low sensitivity limiting their use in several applications. Another type of thin wafer transducers developed from a type of Piezo-Composite transducers (PCT) have also attracted considerable attention in recent years owing to their underwater and bio-medical applicability providing superior coupling constants, high shapeability and much lower acoustic impedance. However, availability of any work demonstrating the suitability of PCTs for structural health diagnosis and detecting damage is very limited. </p> Objective <p>In this work, the capabilities of 1,3 PCTs in actuation and sensing of Lamb waves in thin Aluminium (Al) plate structures are investigated and new findings on their SHM capabilities of thin plates are presented. </p> Methods <p>An electromechanical model is formulated to obtain the effective parameters of 1,3 PCTs under different ceramic volume fractions. Finite element simulations are carried out with different actuator and sensor configurations of 1,3 PCT and monolithic PZT transducers for generating A0 and S0 Lamb waves modes in thin Al plate. An experimental set up is also made with thin Al plate using different configurations of 1,3 PCTs and monolithic PZT transducers acting as actuators and sensors for generating A0 and S0 Lamb waves modes to repeat the simulation analysis under similar circumstances and the results are discussed.</p> Results <p>Experimental and simulation results utilizing electromechanical formulations for coupling and piezoelectric constants are shown in overall good agreement. The simulations have shown that , for 1,3 PCT (PZT 5H/Epoxy), for usage of a single volume fraction between 43% to 48% can give same actuation and sensing response which would be approximately 35% lesser than the monolithic PZT 5H response. Further, a 1,3 PCT with only 25% ceramic volume fraction demonstrates on par sensing behavior as a monolithic PZT 5H sensor and acts as a better choice as sensors in Lamb wave applications for damage detection. </p> Conclusion <p>The works carried out in this study opens up alternate pathways in optimum design of 1,3 PCTs for its utility in various SHM and structural diagnostics by proper selection of active (piezoelectric ceramic fiber) and passive or active (matrix) constituents for different substrate structures.</p>