Structural health monitoring: Sensors and systems

The invited lecture focuses on Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) as a modern trend in maintenance. Principle of the new approach is presented and advantages of SHM are highlighted. The SHM consists of three interconnected subsystems - detection, diagnosis and prognosis. Roles of the subsystems are explained. Current R&D activities in this field are summarized. Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEE), University of Žilina participated as a strategic consortium partner in realization of an international project “Helicopter fuselage Crack moniToring and prognosis through on-board sensOR network (HECTOR)”. The project was financed by the European Defencse Agency (EDA) under the program “Defence R&T Joint Investment Programme on Innovative Concepts and Emerging Technologies (JIP-ICET)” under a call “Monitoring and Control”. The project was executed in the period 12/2009-12/2011 under coordination of the Politecnico di Milano, Italy. General goal of the project laid on research and development of a methodology for SHM of critical fuselage parts of a medium weight helicopter. Activities of the project were focused on sensor technologies, computer modeling of mechanical fuselage parts, design of sensor network, communication strategies used in the data transmission via sensor network, software solutions for diagnosis and predictions as well as for processing and interpretation of results. FEE participated in the R&D of crucial components of the developed SHM methodology as well as it had a role as a work package leader. Outputs of the project were evaluated within last period and the evaluation results report that the HECTOR is one of the best EDA projects realized under the JIP-ICET program. On the basis of the theoretical background explained in the beginning, publishable details of the HECTOR project are presented. Especially, role of the FEE in the project is highlighted and the hardware and software systems developed by FEE are shown.