Chapter 1 - Introduction

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of how the structural health monitoring (SHM) concept could be applied to aerospace composites. Composite materials have known an increasing acceptance into aerospace construction over an evolutionary period that spans more than four decades. At present, the new airframes are predominantly composites, such as Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 XWB in which composites have 80% participation by volume (i.e., 50% participation by weight). Because the damage and failure modes of composite structures are significantly more complicated and diverse than those of metallic airframes, this widespread penetration of composite materials into commercial and military aircraft construction opens new avenues for studying in-service performance, nondestructive evaluation (NDE), and SHM. Hence, the rest of the book is dedicated to understanding these intricate phenomena and identifying sensors and methods by which they can be monitored in service through the NDE and SHM processes.