Passive monitoring systems for structural damage assessment

摘要

Engineering structures are designed to function within the elastic domain and designs are chosen based on their relative merits and capabilities to suitably address the specific requirements. The decision to monitor a structure to determine the long-term performance characteristics and operational stability involves many factors including, but not limited to, the objectives of the monitoring and the available resources to do so. One must choose between active monitoring systems, i.e., those that require real-time power supplies, and ancillary data acquisition, storage and monitoring systems and passive systems which, as the name implies, operate without any of these constraints. Passive techniques for structural health monitoring and materials damage assessment are reviewed. Data are presented to illustrate their application as related to structural health monitoring, crack detection and crack growth monitoring, and damage assessment in composite materials.