A composite material can be defined as a combination of two or more distinct materials at a macroscopic level to attain new properties that can’t be achieved by those of individual components acting alone. Different from metallic alloys, each material keeps its own chemical, physical and mechanical properties [1]. Composite materials have reinforcing and matrix phases. The reinforcing phase wit...

A Bayesian probabilistic methodology for structural health monitoring is presented. The method uses a sequence of identified modal parameter data sets to compute the probability that continually updated model stiffness parameters are less than a specified fraction of the corresponding initial model stiffness parameters. In this approach, a high likelihood of reduction in model stiffness at a lo...

This paper discusses the topic of how the integrity of safety-critical structural composites can be enhanced by the use of structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques. The paper starts with a presentation of how the certification of flight-critical composite structures can be achieved within the framework of civil aviation safety authority requirements. Typical composites damage mechanisms, w...

Data mining (DM) technology provides a potential solution to structural health monitoring (SHM) as a deeper data analysis method. In this paper, a comprehensive introduction to the background, definition, function, process, methods and advantage of DM technology is made. The research and application state of DM technology in various fields is reviewed. Responding to the need of SHM and the char...

This paper studies the problem of distributed computation over a wireless network of resource constrained sensor nodes. In particular, we focus our attention on sensor networks used for structural health monitoring. Within this context, the heaviest computation is to determine the singular value decomposition (SVD) to extract mode shapes (eigenvectors) of a structure. Compared to collecting raw...

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) technologies have the potential to realize economic benefits in a broad range of commercial and defense markets. Previous research conducted by Metis Design and MIT has demonstrated the ability of Lamb waves methods to provide reliable information regarding the presence, location and type of damage in composite specimens. The present NSF funded program was aim...

1 This paper describes an ongoing project investigating embedded networked sensing for structural health monitoring applications. The vision is of many low-power sensor “motes” embedded throughout the structure with a smaller number of nodes that can provide local excitation. The challenge is to develop both the networking algorithms to reliably communicate within the network, and distributed a...

This paper presents an overview and recent advances in impedance-based structural health monitoring. The basic principle behind this technique is to apply high-frequency structural excitations (typically greater than 30kHz) through surface-bonded piezoelectric transducers, and measure the impedance of structures by monitoring the current and voltage applied to the piezoelectric transducers. Cha...