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Introduction to Structural Health Monitoring

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 Chapter 1

Introduction to Structural Health Monitoring

1. Definition of Structural Health Monitoring

The Structural Health Monitoring consists to give, at every moment during the
life of a structure, a diagnosis on the « state » of the constitutive materials, of the
different parts, and of the full assembly of these parts constituting the structure as a
whole. The state of the structure must remain in a nominal domain resulting from
the design. It can be altered by the normal aging due to the usage and the action of
the environment, and by accidental events. Thanks to the time-dimension of
monitoring, which allows to consider the full history data base of the structure, and
to the help of the Usage Monitoring, it can also allow a prognosis (evolution of
damage, residual life…).
Considering just the first function, the diagnosis, we could estimate that
Structural Health Monitoring is a new and improved way to make Non Destructive
Evaluation. This is partially true, but Structural Health Monitoring is much more. It
involves the integration of sensors, possibly smart materials, data transmission,
computational power, and processing ability inside the structures. It allows to
reconsider the design of the structure and the full management of the structure itself
and of the structure considered as a part of wider systems. This is schematically
presented in Figure 1.
In Figure 1, the organization of a typical Structural Health Monitoring system is
given in details. The first part of the system, which corresponds to the structural
integrity monitoring function, can be defined by: i) the type of physical
phenomenon, closely related to the damage, which is monitored by the sensor, ii) the
type of physical phenomenon which is used by the sensor to produce a signal
(generally electric) sent to the acquisition and storage sub-system. Several sensors of
same types, constituting a network can be multiplexed and their data merged with
those from other types of sensors. Possibly, others sensors, monitoring the
environment conditions, allow to perform the usage monitoring function. The signal

Chapter written by Daniel Balageas

Version of April, 2005

2 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

delivered by the integrity monitoring sub-system, in parallel with the previously

registered data are used by the controller which elaborate a diagnostic. Mixing the
information of the integrity monitoring sub-system with the one of the usage
monitoring sub-system and with the knowledge based on damage mechanics and
behavior laws, allows to elaborate the prognosis (residual life) and the health
management of the structure (organization of the maintenance, repair operations…).
Finally, similar structure management systems related to other structures which
constitute a sort of super system (fleet of aircraft, park of power stations…), permit
the health management of the super system. Of course, practical systems can work
being not so complete like here described.

Figure 1. Principle and organization of a Structural Health Monitoring system.

2. Motivation for Structural Health monitoring

Knowing the integrity of in-service structures on a continuous real-time basis is a

very important objective for manufacturers, end-users and maintenance teams. In
effect, Structural Health Monitoring:
- allows for the users, an optimal use of the structure, a minimized downtime, the
avoidance of catastrophic failures,
- gives to the constructor an improvement of his products,
- changes drastically the work organization of maintenance service: i) by aiming
to replace scheduled and periodic maintenance inspection by performance-based (or
condition based) maintenance (long term) or at least (short term) by reducing the
present maintenance labor, in particular by avoiding to dismount parts where there is
 Introduction to SHM 3

no hidden defect, ii) by minimizing drastically the human involvement and

consequently reducing labor, downtime and human errors, and thus improving
safety and reliability. These drastic changes in maintenance philosophy are
described in several recent papers, in particular for military air vehicles [DER 03],
for Army systems [WAL 03] for civil aircraft [BER 03, GOG 03], and for civil
infrastructures [FRA 03].
The improvement of safety seems to be a strong motivation, in particular after
some spectacular accidents due to: i) unsatisfactory maintenance, like in the
aeronautic field, the accident of Aloha Airlines [OTT 88] - see Figure 2a - , or in the
civil engineering field, the collapse of Mianus River bridge, (ii) ill-controlled
manufacturing process, like the Injak bridge collapse (see Figure 2b). In both fields
the problem of aging structures was discovered and subsequent programs
established. To pinpoint the importance of the problem of structure aging, the
following statistic can be recalled: bridge inspection during the late 80’s, revealed
that on the 576,000 U.S. highway bridges, 236,000 were rated deficient by present
day standard [WAN 97].

Figure 2. Spectacular accidents having motivated the community to improve safety.

a) The Aloha Airlines flight 243, April 29, 1988, due to corrosion not enough
controlled by maintenance. b) The Injaka bridge collapse, July 1998, due to ill-
control construction process.
4 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

Nevertheless, the analysis of the various causes of aircraft accidents points out
the relatively low influence of maintenance deficiency. Figure 3 shows that
maintenance is only responsible of 14% of hull loss. Furthermore, it can be noticed
that only 4% of all accidents are due to structure weakness. It can be concluded that,
thanks to the introduction of SHM, even an improvement of maintenance and a
decrease of structure-caused accidents by a factor of 2 would lead to a global
reduction of accident lower than 10 %, which is far from what is needed to avoid an
important increase of the number of accidents in the near future if air traffic still
increases.
The economic motivation is stronger, principally for end-users. In effect, for
structures with SHM systems, the envisaged benefits are constant maintenance costs
and reliability, instead of increasing maintenance costs and decreasing reliability for
classical structures without SHM (see Figure 4).

Figure 3. Origin of hull losses: safety record-worldwide commercial jet fleet, from [GOR 97].

Figure 4. Benefit of Structural Health Monitoring for end-users [CHA 02].

 Introduction to SHM 5

The economic impact of the introduction of SHM for aircraft is not easy to
evaluate. It depends on the usage conditions, and furthermore, it is difficult to
appreciate the impact on the fabrication cost of the structure. The price of SHM
systems must not cancel the expected maintenance cost savings. Easier is the
evaluation of time saved by the new type of maintenance based on SHM
introduction. Such evaluation can be found, for military aircraft, in [BAR 97], who
reports that for a modern fighter aircraft featuring both metal and composite
structure, an estimated 40% plus can be saved on inspection time by the use of smart
monitoring systems. Table 1 presents the figures resulting from this evaluation.

Inspection type Current inspection Estimated potential Time saved (% of

time (% of total) for smart systems total)

Flight line 16 0.40 6.5

Scheduled 31 0.45 14.0

Unscheduled 16 0.10 1.5

Service Instructions 37 0.60 22.0

100 44.0

Table 1. Estimated time saved on inspection operations by the use of Structural Health
Monitoring, for modern fighter aircraft, from [BAR 97].

Still in the aeronautic domain, for constructors there is a benefit, too. Taking into
account in the design the permanent presence of sensors will permit to reduce the
safety margins in some critical areas. Mass reduction will be then possible, giving
higher performances to the aircraft : less fuel consumption, higher maximum range.

3. Structural Health Monitoring as a way to make materials and structures

smart

Since the end of the eighties, the concept of smart or intelligent materials and
structures has become more and more present in the mind of engineers. These new
ideas were particularly welcome in the fields of aerospace and civil engineering. In
fact, the concept is presently one of the pushing factor to innovation in all domains.
The concept of Smart Materials/Structures (SMS) can be considered as a step in
the general evolution of man-made objects as shown in figure 5. There is a
continuous trend from simple to complex in the man production, starting from the
use of homogeneous materials, given by nature and taken with their natural
properties, followed by multi materials (in particular, composite materials) allowing
to constitute structures with properties adapted to specific uses. In fact, composite
materials and multi materials are replacing homogeneous materials in more and
more numerous structures. This is particularly true in the aeronautic domain. For
instance, composite parts are now currently used or envisaged for modern aircraft
(see for instance in Figure 6 the project of the 7E7 Dreamliner of Boeing, which has
50% of its structures made of composites). It is worth to notice that this aircraft is
the first one for which it is clearly planed to embed SHM systems, in particular
systems for impact detection.
6 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

Figure 5. General evolution of materials/structures used by man, and place of smart

structures, including structures with SHM.

Figure 6. Example of the increasing importance of composites in civil aircraft: the 7E7
Dreamliner has 50% of its structure made of composites. For this aircraft, impact detection
monitoring systems are envisaged for outer panels.

The next step consists in making the properties of the materials and structures
adapted to the changing environmental conditions. This needs to make them
sensitive, controllable and active. The various level of such “intelligence”
corresponds to the existence of one, two or all three qualities. So sensitive,
controllable and autoadaptive materials/structures can be distinguished. Classically,
three types of SMS exist: SMS controlling their shape, SMS controlling their
vibrations, and SMS controlling their health. It is clear that materials and structures
integrating Structural Health Monitoring systems, belong, at least for short term, to
the less smart type of SMS. In effect, quasi all works achieved in this field only
intent to make materials/structures sensitive, by embedding sensors. The next step
 Introduction to SHM 7

towards smarter structures would be to make self-repairing materials/structures, or at

least materials/structures with damage mitigation embedded process. For damage
mitigation, embedding actuators made of shape memory alloys (SMA) could be a
solution by inducing strains in order to reduce the stresses in regions of strain
concentration. These SMA actuators could be under the form of wires [YOS 96,
CHO 99] or films [TAK 00]. As regards self-healing structures, very rare attempts
exists. Let us mention in the field of civil engineering, the existence of self-healing
concretes containing hollow adhesive-filled brittle fibers: the adhesive is released
when the fibers are broken in region where cracking occurs [DRY 94]. Similar
method is applied to polymer matrix composites [DRY 96, MOT 99].
As just seen above, strong differences exist between structures with Structural
health Monitoring and Smart Materials/Structures controlling their shape and
vibrations. Nevertheless, it is interesting to consider them as part of a whole (see
Figure 7), since a really smart structure will integrate both three functionalities, and
because they all rely on common basic researches aiming at:
.

Figure 7. Common basis and complementarity of Structural Health Monitoring, shape

control, and vibration control.
8 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

- elaborating new sensitive materials to make sensors and actuators,

- developing technologies to miniaturize sensors and actuators, and to embed
them without degradation of the host structures,
- conceiving systems for data reduction and diagnostic formulation.
It is the reason why, until recently, the works on Structural Health Monitoring were
often presented in conferences and journals devoted to the general topic of Smart
Materials and Structures

4. SHM and biomimetics

The research on Smart Materials and Structures in general, and on Structural

Health Monitoring in particular, is more or less influenced by biomimetics (or bio
inspiration). This attitude is a real source of invention.
Regarding Structural Health Monitoring, a strong similitude exists between it
and medical activity. This has been well pinpointed in (Gandhi and Thompson,
1992) where a parallelism, given in Table 2, is drawn.
Very often sensitive structures equipped with various types of sensors are
compared to the living skin. This analogy remains superficial because skin is really
an auto adaptive smart structure controlling its integrity. This is possible thanks to
the presence of actuators which can counterbalance environmental aggressions. At
micro scale, the number and variety of skin sensors (see Figure 8) is far from what is
possible for man-made sensitive structures (in one human hand, there are more than
100 000 sensors!). Finally, the reconstruction ability of living tissues is certainly the
more difficult function to reproduce.

Phase of the life Man Structures

Birth Birth Monitoring Process monitoring

Sound life Health check-up Health and Usage

Monitoring

Illness and death Clinical Monitoring Health (damage)

Monitoring

Table 2. Parallelism between medical activities and Structural Health Monitoring, from
[GAN 92].

Often, another analogy is also described, like in [BER 03] between the nervous
system of living beings and structures instrumented by sensors and equipped with a
central processor (see Figure 9). The gap between living systems and artefacts is
perhaps smaller in this case and the study of the functioning of the nervous system
and brain is useful to conceive control systems (adaptive control influenced by the
environment). After detection of the damage by the sensors embedded in the
structure, the central processor can build a diagnosis and a prognosis and decide of
 Introduction to SHM 9

the actions to undertake (restriction of the operational domain to avoid overloading

in the damaged area, and/or scheduling of a condition-based inspection possibly
followed by a repair).

Figure 8. Sketch of human skin showing the variety of sensors and actuators making it a
really smart structure, taken from [MON 74].

Figure 9. Analogy between the nervous system of man and a structure with Structural Health
Monitoring, from [ROG 93].

Biomimetics can help to find new ideas, but we must avoid to try to copy as near
as possible nature, since we do not use the same materials and the same fabrication
processes. For example, there is a bio inspiration which had a strong influence on
the strategy adopted by many researchers, which consists to suppose that it is
mandatory to embed the sensors inside the materials of the structure. Such a choice
10 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

is important since it has heavy consequences for the development of practical

systems. The fully embedded solution considerably complicate the technology
needed, creating problems of different natures: higher miniaturization is needed,
demonstration of the innocuousness of the embedded sensor for the host structure
has to be demonstrated, connectics complicate the structure design and process,
repairability is problematic, redundancy of sensor networks is needed, operational
life of sensors must be at least as long as the one of the structure… The necessity of
embedding the sensors is not obvious in most of the case, and the drawbacks of
surface mounted sensors are often less critical than those of the more sophisticated
solution. If so, this particular bio inspiration could be a false “good idea”.

5. Process and pre-usage monitoring as a part of SHM

Sensors for Health Monitoring can be incorporated into the components during
the manufacturing process of the composite. Thus, in a global approach including
the processing stage, the sensors can be used first to monitor the processing
parameters in order to optimise the initial materials properties. The physical
parameters of the material which can be monitored during the process are varied:
refractive index, viscoelastic properties, conductivity… A range of techniques is
available allowing their on-line monitoring: electrical techniques [KRA 91, PIC 99],
electro-mechanical impedance technique using embedded piezo-patches [JAY 97,
GIU 03], acousto-ultrasonics (or optical techniques using fiber-optic sensors [CHA
01, DEGa 02]). It could be interesting to mix such different sensors achieving a
multidetection [CHA 00].
For temperature during the process and inside the composite, once again various
optical fiber-based sensor systems are available. These are predominantly based on
fluorescence decay measurements [LIU 00], fiber Bragg gratings [LIU 98, DEW 99] or
modified extrinsic fiber Fabry-Perot sensors [DEGb 02].
There is an intermediate phase of the life of a structure that can need Structural
Health Monitoring too: between the end of the manufacturing process and the
beginning of the functioning phase, for certain structures, a lot of handling and
transportation operations take place. During this phase which could be called the
pre-usage phase of the structure, accidental loads, not known by the end-user, may
occur and threaten the structure reliability. A good illustration of such a risk is given
in [GUN 99]. On January 17, 1997, the Delta II mission 241 failed when the rocket
exploded after a flight of 12.5 seconds, with the consequence of loosing the first of
the new block of the Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) – see Figure 10 -. The
occurrence of a damage caused by such handling overloading, the rocket being
transported by road before to be fired, was highly suspected. The remedy consist in
equipping the structure with a SHM system registering the shocks occurred during
the full pre-usage phase.
For such type of structural health monitoring, it is easier to detect the possibly
damaging events than the inferred damage. The possible sensors can be resistive
strain gages or strain-sensitive fiber optic sensors for the quasi static loads and
acoustic emission sensors for impact type loads.
 Introduction to SHM 11

6. SHM as a part of System Management

Health Management can be defined as the process of making appropriate

decisions/recommendations about operation, mission and maintenance actions based on
the health assessment data gathered by Health Monitoring Systems [REN 02].

Figure 10. Delta II mission 241 explosion, from [GUN 99], a catastrophic failure which could
have been avoided by pre-usage health monitoring – a) Road transportation: the rocket is inside
the trailer, here detached; b) Delta II liftoff; c) The explosion, initiated from a crack in one of
the graphite epoxy motors situated at the base of the rocket.

Figure 11 presents the general organization of Structural Health Monitoring, and

how it is included into Health Management System. This presentation is general and
independent of the application domain considered. In the present section, more
details are given on the different intervenors of the Health Management and on the
information fluxes between them. Although this is done taking the aircraft customer
domain as example - based on a keynote lecture from R. Ikegami from Boeing
Company [IKE 99] -, it is representative of the way the Structural Health
Monitoring can be integrated in more general Health Management system whatever
be the application domain. Structural usage and damage parameters are registered by
sensors and used by on-board data acquisition and signal processing equipment. The
sensors data are transformed into information related to the structural usage and
environment history and to the occurred damage thanks to an usage and damage
Monitoring Reasoner which contains information processing algorithms. Predictive
Diagnostic Models and Prognostics Models feed a Life Management Reasoner
which converts the information delivered by the Usage/Damage Monitoring Reasoner
into knowledge about the aircraft structural health. This knowledge is then
12 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

communicated to an Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) system which

disseminate the information to the flight crew, the operations and maintenance
services, to the Regulatory Agencies and the Original Equipment Manufacturer. So,
a condition-based approach to aircraft inspection and maintenance is possible.
This approach has been refined in more recent papers. In particular, another
people from the same company [GOG 03], gives a more comprehensive view of the
interconnections between the various reasoners involved in the Structural Health
Management architecture, and a description of an IVHM system for air vehicles of
the US DoD is given by Derriso [DER 03].

Figure 11. Aircraft Structural Health Management system architecture, from [IKE 99].

7. Passive and active SHM

Structural Health Monitoring, like Non Destructive Evaluation can be passive or

active. Figures 12 presents the possible situations in which both experimenter and
examined structure are involved. The structure is equipped with sensors and is in
interaction with the surrounding environment in such a way that it state and its
physical parameters are evolving.
If the experimenter is just monitoring this evolution thanks to the embedded
sensors, we can call his action a “passive monitoring”. For Structural Health
Monitoring such situation is encountered with acoustic emission technique detecting
for example the progression of damage in a loaded structure or the occurrence of a
damaging impact [DUP 99, STA 99].
If the experimenter has equipped the structure with both sensors and actuators,
he can generate perturbations in the structure thanks to actuators and use sensors to
monitor the response of the structure. In that case the action of the experimenter is
an “active monitoring”. In the aforementioned example, the monitoring becomes
active by adding to the first piezoelectric patch used as acoustic emission detector a
second patch used as an emitter of ultrasonic waves. The receiver here is registering
signals resulting from the interaction of these waves with a possible damage, allowing
its detection [WAN 99, LEM 00 b, PAG 02].
 Introduction to SHM 13

Figure 12. The two possible attitudes of the experimenter defining passive and active
monitoring.

In classical NDE, the excitation is generally achieved using a device external to

the examined structure, but the philosophy is the same. In SHM, the actuator and the
sensor can be different or identical in nature. For instance excitation by a piezoelectric
patch and detection of the waves by a fiber optic sensor [LIN 02]or by an other
piezoelectric patch. In the case of piezoelectric transducers, it is worth to note that
the same device can work as both emitter and receiver, which gives flexibility to the
monitoring system by alternating the roles. This is illustrated in Figure 13. With
piezoelectric patches, a unique transducer can even play the two functions at the
same time like in the electromechanical impedance technique[BOI 02, GIU 03].

8. NDE, SHM, and NDECS

SHM is born from the conjunction of several techniques and has common basis
with NDE. This is illustrated by figure 14 taken from [CHA 99]. In fact, several
NDE techniques can be converted into SHM techniques by integrating the sensors
and the actuators inside the monitored structure, like in Figure 12b. For instance
traditional ultrasonic testing can be easily converted in an acousto-ultrasonic SHM
system using embedded or surface-mounted piezoelectric patches.
An intermediate solution can be found by only embedding the emitter, or the
receiver, the other part of the system being kept outside of the structure. Figure 15,
taken from [WALSH 99] illustrates this concept. This author calls it the Non
Destructive Evaluation Ready Material (NDERM) concept. A perhaps better
denomination could be: NDE Ready Structure (NDERS) or NDE Cooperative
Structure (NDECS).
Such a solution is a priori interesting in two situations:
- when it is easy to position the emitter inside the structure, during the process, in
a region where it is difficult, or impossible, to produce a stimulation from outside
without dismounting the structure;
14 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

- when it is possible to use for the detection a non-contact, full-field imaging

system allowing to rapidly monitor a large part of the structure. This is possible, for
instance, with techniques like infrared thermography or shearography.

Figure 13. Flexibility of monitoring techniques using piezoelectric patches: a) passive

method: acoustic emission technique, b) active method: acousto-ultrasonic technique with
generation of Lamb waves, c) active method: electromechanical impedance technique.

Figure 14. The basic components of Structural Health Monitoring, taken from [CHA 99].
 Introduction to SHM 15

Figure 15. NDE Cooperative Structures (NDECS), an intermediate solution between NDE
and SHM, taken from [WAL 99]. a) Conventional ultrasonic (surface contact) NDE, b) Smart
material with active and passive embedded sensors, c) NDECS: embedded elements improves
resolution and depth of penetration of conventional ultrasonic NDE system

Several NDECS techniques are presently possible:

- by embedding in the material or bonding on the internal face of the structure a
network of conductors constituting a grid sensitive to the magnetic field generated
by an external electromagnetic antenna and crossing the structure made of
conductive composite like carbon/epoxy composites. This technique has been
proposed as an alternative to a fully integrated electromagnetic technique like the
one called (Hybrid Electromagnetic Layer Performing - HELP Layer-) [LEM 00 a].
- by using lock-in ultrasonic vibrothermography [ZWE 00], a recent technique
presently used in several laboratories, and by generating ultrasounds, Lamb waves in
particular [KRA 98], thanks to an embedded piezoelectric patch, the camera
monitoring the surface thermal field produced by the interaction of the waves with
the defect (delamination for instance).
- by using lock-in shearographic imaging of ultrasounds generated by an
embedded piezoelectric patches, like demonstrated in [DUP 99, TAI 00]
16 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

Figure 16 presents images of Lamb waves interacting with delaminations,

obtained by the two aforementioned already existing NDECS techniques. Both
images show the interaction of Lamb waves with a delamination caused by an
impact in a carbon epoxy plate. The waves frequencies are 112 kHz for image 15a
and 68 kHz for image 15b. The waves are intensity modulated at a low frequency
(0.033 Hz for thermography and 0.3 Hz for shearography). The full temperature
scale of image 15a is just 20 mK. Such a sensitivity is possible thanks to the lock-in
detection. Image 15b shows the incident Lamb waves generated by a circular
piezoelectric patch located near the upper right corner of the image, and the
diffraction caused by the delamination, allowing a clear localization of the damage.

Figure 16. Monitoring of an impact-generated delamination in a carbon-epoxy coupon using

NDECS techniques: a) Lock-in ultrasonic vibrothermography coupled with embedded piezo
patch lamb waves (from [KRA 98], b) Lock-in shearography coupled with embedded piezo
patch Lamb waves (from [TAI 00]).

9. Variety and multidisciplinarity: the most remarkable characters of SHM

Structural Health Monitoring is remarkable by the variety of techniques used.
This is, in fact, the consequence of the diversity of both structures/materials to
monitor and types of damage to detect. To illustrate this question, Table 3 presents
the results of a survey, achieved in the frame of the Brite-Euram Project MONITOR
funded by the European Union [MON 95]. The questionnaire concerned the
requirements of end-users in aeronautics (aircraft manufacturers and operators)
allowing to rank the inspection targets which could benefit from Structural Health
Monitoring solutions. If we extend the survey to other fields (civil engineering, atomic

Table 3. Aeronautics end-users needs which can be satisfied by SHM: percentage of

respondents to the questionnaire who showed positive interest, from [BAR 97].
 Introduction to SHM 17

energy industry, mechanical industry…) which use other materials, at other scales
and in other environments, and if we define more closely the possible damage to
detect, the diversity is much more wide than it appears in table 3.
To satisfy these needs, the variety of sensing techniques is tremendous, and for a
given damage, several techniques can be satisfactorily applied. The sensors which
can be used are based on various physical phenomena and are made of very different
materials. Although not considering the optical sensors, table 4 shows the diversity
of physical phenomena and sensor materials which can be used. All this explains
why Structural Health Monitoring, as all research in Smart Materials and Structures,
is eminently multidisciplinary.

Table 4. Materials for sensor design, from [DER 02].

The types of sensors used to monitor structural health is strongly depending on

the types of structures to monitor. Figure 17 presents the main types of sensors used
in the two main fields of application: civil engineering and aerospace engineering.
These statistics are based on the communications given in the two first International
Workshops on SHM held at the University of Stanford (1997 and 1999).
For a more narrow field defined by a specific type of structure and a specific
type of damage, the structural health monitoring of composite structures with
18 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

delaminations, the distribution of the various types of methods is given in Figure 18,
for the period 1997-2003. The statistics are based in this case on a wider
bibliographical data base counting near of 1150 references. The distribution is
similar to the one found for aerospace engineering (Figure 17). As shown in Figure
18, in each family of sensors, there are a wide variety of specific sensors.

Figure 17. Main types of sensors used for structural health monitoring, depending on the
types of application: comparison between aerospace engineering and civil engineering,
statistics based on the communications to the 1st and 2nd IWSHM of Stanford in 1997 and
1999, taken from [BAL 2001 a].

Figure 18. Type of sensors used in the references related to the monitoring of delaminations
in composite structures. Statistics based on a general survey of SHM literature for the period
1997-2003 (1150 references).
 Introduction to SHM 19

Figure 19. Methods used for the monitoring of delaminations in composite structures

If we consider now the methods of monitoring, independently of the type of

sensor used, one more time a very wide variety exists too. This is shown in Figure
19, which presents the distribution of monitoring methods used in the same
references.
In addition, for each specific sensor, several methods can exist, varying on the
way to use the sensor or to identify the characteristics of the damage. For example,
piezoelectric patches can be used for monitoring techniques as varied as:
electromechanical impedance, acoustic emission, propagation of high-frequency
waves like Lamb waves, analysis of random or modal vibrations…
Considering this variety of sensors and techniques, it has been the choice of the
authors of this book to present the state of the art of Structural Health Monitoring
following the general types of sensors used instead of following the fields of
applications or the types of materials or structures. It seems that it was the best way
to obtain homogeneous and coherent chapters without redundancy.

10. Birth of the Community of Structural Health Monitoring

Structural Health Monitoring is a recent field of research appeared in the least

decade of the last century. As seen above, it is a really multidisciplinary activity.
Researchers and engineers involved in it are coming from various more classical
disciplines: structure vibration analysis, structural control, non destructive
evaluation, material science, signal processing, sensors/actuators technology… The
more interested fields of application are the aerospace and the civil engineering.
The former works were presented in NDE and structural control conferences
and, later, in conferences devoted to the new topic of Smart or Intelligent Materials
and Structures (for instance, SPIE Conferences on Smart Structures and Materials).
The need for conferences totally devoted to SHM gave birth, in 1997, to the
International Workshop on SHM, created by Prof. Fu-Kuo Chang. Since that date
the IWSHM takes place every two years at the same place, the University of
Stanford. This Workshop is now accompanied by an European Workshop on SHM,
held every two years, too, in alternation with the Stanford Workshop. The usefulness
20 Structural Health Monitoring – Chapter I

of the two conferences is shown in Figure 20: the origins of the authors of
communications are really complementary between America and Europe. The part
of Asia and Pacific is nearly the same for the two conferences.
The addition of the two conferences can be considered as representative of the
world community of Structural Health Monitoring. Figure 21 shows that the number
of countries in which research groups and/or industries are working in the field is very
large: 37 countries sent speakers or attendees to these two conferences of 2002-2003.
If we consider the number of papers presented in these two conferences, it
appears that they are in a constant progression, for instance, for the Stanford
Conference, from 65 in 1997 to 184 in 2003 (see Figure 22).

Figure 20. Respective attendance to the European Workshop on SHM (1st EWSHM, Cachan
2002) and to the International Workshop on SHM (4th IWSHM, Stanford, 2003)

Figure 21. World distribution of speakers and attendees at the fourth IWSHM (2003) and first
EWSHM (2002) considered as a whole. White disks correspond to countries sending
attendees and disks with a black center to countries sending speakers.
 Introduction to SHM 21

Figure 22. Development of the SHM community: number of papers presented at the
Workshops on SHM (IWSM and EWSHM). This evaluation is based on the published
proceedings.

A parallel evolution occurred for scientific journals. At the beginning, papers on

Structural Health Monitoring were mainly published in the two reviews devoted to
the more general topic of smart structures and materials: Smart Materials and
Structures and Intelligent Materials Systems and Structures. Since two years, a new
journal entirely devoted to Structural Health Monitoring is published : Structural
Health Monitoring International Journal.
This evolution and the statistics given above, prove the existence of a
community in expansion, illustration of the pertinence of the SHM philosophy. No
doubt that the increase of the activity on SHM will continue for a while.

11. Conclusion

In the context described in the previous paragraph, the need for courses on the
subject is obvious. New researchers and engineers are attracted by the topic. For
beginners, the field is rather difficult due to multidisplinarity of the subject. This is
the reason for publishing the present book, which is the fruit of a short course of
continuing education given at the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Cachan (Paris) by a
group of specialists from several European countries.
The book is structured following the types of monitoring techniques,
independently of the fields of application. In each chapter, both sensing techniques
and related data reduction techniques are described. Each chapter is conceived as an
introduction to the monitoring technique, giving a large list of references in which
the reader can continue to explore the state-of-the-art and the potential applications.

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