US-Egypt Cooperative Research: Smart Composite Materials for Monitoring Structural Damage

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9904493GiurgiutiuDescription: This award is to support a collaborative project by Drs. Victor Giurgiutiu and Abdel Moez Bayoumi, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina and Dr. Yehia A. Bahei-El-Din, Structural Engineering Department, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. They plan to develop composite panels with integrated sensors for damage detection of structures. Specifically they plan to develop and calibrate wafer sensors, design, analysis and fabrication and calibration of smart composite panels, examination of the interaction between the embedded sensors and the containing matrix and its effect on the relayed signals, and instrumentation, testing and damage monitoring of full-scale structure members. The novelty of the research lies in the electromechanical sensing technique for assessing structural integrity. This approach offers several advantages of existing techniques and is the subject of developing interest in the adaptive structures community. Electromechanical Impedance techniques for monitoring structural health are a recent development gaining interest in the adaptive structures community. This approach offers several potential benefits over current inspection techniques.Scope: The proposal has high intellectual merit, and the research plan is well organized. There is a need for data from large scale testing, of the type described in this study, to validate smart composite concepts. Bayoumi and Giurgiutiu have worked in the field of smart materials and composites for several years and have published in this area. Bahei-El-Din adds the structural engineering credentials that are important to successful completion of this study. Graduate research assistants from both universities will collaborate on the research, and will gain experience in international scientific activities. This proposal meets the INT objective of supporting collaborative research in areas of mutual interest. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.