Structural Health Monitoring
To overcome this issue ACS Australia staff and CRC-ACS participants have undertaken programs to develop and assess Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) technology that can be used to obtain a direct measurement of the health of a structure and thus allow more optimized, cost-effective maintenance practices to be implemented. This development of multifunctional “smart structures” is seen as a critical underpinning technology for future advances in many industry sectors. Effort has been focused on the development and understanding of the monitoring capabilities in the key technologies of optical sensors, acousto-ultrasonics and comparative vacuum monitoring. ACS Australia staff have also built up a significant body of experience and knowledge on the issues of implementing these technologies into composite structures. This expertise has been recognized through the involvement of ACS Australia staff in several European collaborative programs to develop new SHM technology and overcome the issues of integrating SHM technology into aerospace applications. |
The cost to operate and maintain critical infrastructure in industry sectors such as aerospace, oil & gas and civil runs into billions of dollars each year. However, many of the maintenance approaches used are inefficient, relying upon regimented practices that enforce costly downtime no matter whether the structure requires corrective action or not.