Structural Health Monitoring in Composites Structures

A special issue of Applied Mechanics (ISSN 2673-3161).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (22 November 2023) | Viewed by 1788

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dartmouth, MA 02747, USA
Interests: damage sensing; multi-functional composites; high strain rate characterization; dynamic fracture mechanics
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, structural health monitoring (SHM) has been more integrated into the infrastructure industry with increasing use in a wide range of applications. Several health-monitoring concepts, such as novel non-destructive testing (NDT) technologies, embedded sensors, and self-sensing material systems, etc., have been explored in civil infrastructures lately. The aim of this Special Issue on “Structural Health Monitoring in Composites Structures” is to showcase the most recent and relevant advances in the damage-sensing field, oriented toward the following topics (but not limited to them):

  • Self-sensing composite materials using carbon-based or metallic nano-inclusions;
  • Embedded sensors (fiber optics, smart piezoelectric films or coatings);
  • Non-destructive testing techniques (ultrasonic, thermography, x-ray, laser stereography, acoustic emission, and computed tomography);
  • Vibration-based damage-sensing methodologies;
  • Guided-wave structural health monitoring;
  • Machine learning and deep vision algorithms;
  • Inverse problem for structural health monitoring;
  • Wireless sensor networks for continuous structural health monitoring.

Prof. Dr. Vijaya B. Chalivendra
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • self-sensing
  • embedded sensors
  • non-destructive techniques
  • vibrations

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

22 pages, 13665 KiB  
Article
A Structural Health Monitoring System for Bond Line Flaws Detection on a Full-Scale Wingbox Section Demonstrator
by Lorenzo Pellone, Monica Ciminello, Umberto Mercurio, Gianvito Apuleo and Antonio Concilio
Appl. Mech. 2024, 5(1), 36-57; https://doi.org/10.3390/applmech5010003 - 22 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1070
Abstract
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the use of structural health monitoring (SHM) technologies as systems for monitoring the integrity of aircraft’s structures. The use of compact and embeddable sensor networks, like the ones based on fibre optics (FO), [...] Read more.
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the use of structural health monitoring (SHM) technologies as systems for monitoring the integrity of aircraft’s structures. The use of compact and embeddable sensor networks, like the ones based on fibre optics (FO), is particularly attractive from the perspective of releasing an integrated structural system with intrinsic sensing capacity. Usually, an SHM system architecture is completed by a dedicated algorithm that processes the data gathered from the sensors to elaborate on the level of damage currently suffered by the structure, with the further possibility of providing information to the relevant specialists involved with its supervision. One of the main SHM applications that is attracting major interest is related to the inspection and detection of anomalies in bonded joints, which is extremely relevant in many composite realizations. Aeronautical regulations allow the use of bonded joints on an aircraft’s primary structure but require the implementation of a means to ensure their absolute safety, such as the introduction of further mechanical links aimed at stopping the propagation of a possible flaw or the availability of Non-Destructive Inspection (NDI) systems to prove the absence of relevant damaged areas. Generally, the main typical defects occurring during the manufacturing of bonded joints include adhesive curing, kissing bonds, poor porosity, and poor surface preparation. The current NDI systems more widely used and available to detect defects are still inaccurate due to the lack of standard procedures for the creation of representative defects in a controlled manner, which would allow for the development of reliable methodologies and tools able to ensure the safety of a bonded joint, as required by safety regulations. This paper shows the results relative to the implementation of an SHM system developed by the Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA) aimed at monitoring the bonding lines between spar caps and panels of a typical composite wingbox section and detecting faults in location and length. The work was performed during typical ground static tests by using a fibre optical sensing network embedded within relevant adhesive paste layers during the manufacturing process of the structure. In the reported investigation, the SHM system assumed the function of an NDI system tool. The results show that the developed SHM system has good reliability for the detection of both the position and size of damage areas that were artificially inserted within the test article during the bonding phase, showing its potential as a candidate to be used as a tool to verify the conditions of a bonded joint, as required by aviation authorities’ regulations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring in Composites Structures)
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