Distributed structural health monitoring with a smart sensor array

Abstract

This paper presents work on smart sensor arrays for distributed structural health monitoring (SHM) and damage diagnosis. The goal of the work was to implement local vibration-based diagnostic algorithms inside a smart ‘black box’ to demonstrate the feasibility of distributed health monitoring for damage detection and location. Dynamic transmissibility features for SHM and the smart-processing platform are described in detail and various damage configurations in two large test structures, a representative three-storey building and a rotorcraft fuselage, are diagnosed. The results show that the near real-time integrated monitoring system works well in spite of certain limited environmental fluctuations (e.g. temperature, input levels) and boundary condition non-linearities. Wired piezoelectric arrays of accelerometers are implemented in conjunction with the black box.