Structural Health Monitoring with Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1

Introduction

This chapter introduces the reader to the concept of structural health monitoring (SHM) and articulates the need for developing SHM systems in order to increase the safety and readiness of our current and future engineering systems while decreasing the life-cycle costs. The chapter briefly reviews some fundamental concepts such as structural fracture and failure, linear elastic fracture mechanics principles and analysis of crack propagation. The principles of aircraft structural integrity program (ASIP), damage-tolerant design and fracture control methodology are reviewed together with component life prediction and airframe life prediction in the context of fatigue testing, aircraft usage, and in-service nondestructive ...