Development of Advanced Techniques in Structural Health Monitoring and Enhancement

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Novel techniques will be developed to increase the sensitivity of structural health monitoring based on the vibration analysis and achieve the effective structural repair and enhancement by using smart materials so as to improve reliability and durability of various mechanical engineering structures (e.g. beams, plates and frames in ground vehicles and aircraft). First, sensitivity of the damage detection based on the vibration analysis will be increased by developing and applying new data analysis methods and novel vibration analysis techniques with active control process. These methods can detect the occurrence and growth of the fatigue crack more efficiently and evaluate the damage extent. Second, damages (e.g. crack and loose of joints) on plate and frame structures will be located by using high resolution laser sensors and spatial wavelet analysis. In addition, with the knowledge of occurrence, growth and location of various types of damage from the aforementioned monitoring techniques, new structural repair and enhancement processes will be developed to improve and extend the structural reliability and serving life. New actuators coupled with piezoelectric stacks and/or fibers will be applied to provide excitation at the site(s) of damage to reduce the stress concentration. Different mounting and control methods of the new piezoelectric actuators will be studied to realize efficient repair and enhancement processes that can fit the variable working and loading conditions. For the long term goal, the combination of advanced structural health monitoring and enhancement methodologies could be applied to practical engineering structures, such as ground vehicles and aircrafts, to detect, evaluate, locate and repair different types of damages and damaged structures efficiently in real-time and to enhance their overall reliability, durability and sustainability. More effective sensors and actuators coupled different smart materials and structures for the structural health monitoring, repair and enhancement will be invented and tested. This research has the potential to benefit manufacturing industries including ground vehicle and aircraft manufacturers and service providers as well as their customers by avoiding serious damages on vehicles and aircraft, reducing the maintenance cost and extending the product serving life.