Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Airframe

Abstract

Design and maintenance of future airframe composite structures is mainly influenced by the requirement to cope with accidental impact damage. The impact detection and identification strategy for existing structures is of primary importance both in structural health monitoring (SHM) and in non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques. Accurately detecting and characterizing an impact event based on sensor data leads us towards condition-based monitoring (CBM), where the subsequent damage can then be detected through active sensing strategies. In this talk, SHM techniques based ultrasonic guided wave will be presented for both passive and active SHM system. Application of these methods to complex stiffened panel will be shown through both experimental measurements and finite element simulations.