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Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Materials

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Advanced Materials Characterization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 July 2023) | Viewed by 7913

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Marco Civera

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Department of Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering (DISEG), Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: damage detection; structural health monitoring; mechanical testing; structural dynamics
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Dr. Cecilia Surace

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Guest Editor

Head of the Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Nanomechanics “G.M. Pugno”, Department of Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: structural dynamics, structural health monitoring; machine learning; nonlinear dynamics; signal processing; structural engineering; vibration analysis; biomechanics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since their inception, structural health monitoring (SHM) and damage diagnosis have had a multidisciplinary aim, applying data-driven and machine-learning-based approaches to a vast range of mechanical systems and civil structures and infrastructures.

However, we should not forget the specificities of the materials included in the monitored system. Due to nonlinear material properties, manufacturing imperfections, and other peculiarities, the static and dynamic response of the target structure may differ from its expected behaviour. Thus, the unique characteristics of complex materials should be accounted for when designing the most appropriate SHM strategy. This is particularly true for composites.

This Special Issue aims to provide a broad view of material-specific issues and solutions in SHM applications to composite materials. Studies from all research fields, in particular aerospace, biomedical, civil, and mechanical engineering, are welcome. These include, but are not restricted to:

Fibre-reinforced polymers/plastics (such as GFRP and CFRP);
Ceramic matrix and metal matrix composites;
Multilayered and sandwich-structured panels;
Organic-based composites;
Biocompatible and bioabsorbable materials;
Bio- and nano-composites;
Innovative sustainable composites and green materials;
Self-sensing composite materials and embedded sensors;
New and advanced building materials, such as self-sealing and self-healing concrete and cementitious materials, fibre-reinforced concrete, composite structures of civil use, improved reinforced concrete solutions, etc.

Any other relevant work concerning advanced composite materials will also be gladly considered. These can include theoretical, numerical, and (especially) experimental studies.

Dr. Marco Civera
Prof. Dr. Cecilia Surace
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

structural health monitoring
damage detection
damage diagnosis
composite materials
GFRP
advanced building materials

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 2807 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Comparative Structural Analysis of GFRP, Reinforced Concrete, and Steel Frames under Seismic Loads

by Luca Mincigrucci, Marco Civera, Erica Lenticchia, Rosario Ceravolo, Michele Rosano and Salvatore Russo

Materials 2023, 16(14), 4908; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16144908 - 09 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1166

Abstract

Fibre-reinforced polymer composites in general, and especially glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP), have increasingly been used in recent decades in construction. The advantages of GFRP as an alternative construction material are its high strength-to-weight ratio, corrosive resistance, high durability, and ease of installation. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the response of GFRP under dynamic conditions (more specifically, under seismic loads) and to compare the performance of this composite material with that of two traditional building materials: reinforced concrete and structural steel. To this aim, a finite element analysis is carried out on a two-dimensional frame modelled with steel, reinforced concrete (RC), or GFRP pultruded materials and subjected to a seismic input. The dynamic response of the structure is evaluated for the three building materials in terms of displacements, inter-storey drift, base shear, and stress. The results show a good performance of the GFRP frame, with stress distribution and displacements halfway between those of RC and steel. Most importantly, the GFRP frame outperforms the other materials in terms of reduced weight and, thus, base shear (−40% compared to steel and −88.5% compared to RC). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Materials)

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21 pages, 1863 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Delamination and Skin-Spar Debond Detection in Composite Structures Using the Inverse Finite Element Method

by Rinto Roy and Marco Gherlone

Materials 2023, 16(5), 1969; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16051969 - 28 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1393

Abstract

This work presents a novel strategy for detecting and localizing intra- or inter-laminar damages in composite structures using surface-instrumented strain sensors. It is based on the real-time reconstruction of structural displacements using the inverse Finite Element Method (iFEM). The iFEM reconstructed displacements or strains are post-processed or ‘smoothed’ to establish a real-time healthy structural baseline. As damage diagnosis is based on comparing damaged and healthy data obtained using the iFEM, no prior data or information regarding the healthy state of the structure is required. The approach is applied numerically on two carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy composite structures: for delamination detection in a thin plate, and skin-spar debond detection in a wing box. The influence of measurement noise and sensor locations on damage detection is also investigated. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach is reliable and robust but requires strain sensors proximal to the damage site to ensure accurate predictions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Materials)

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25 pages, 9630 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Classification of Thermally Degraded Concrete by Acoustic Resonance Method and Image Analysis via Machine Learning

by Richard Dvořák, Zdeněk Chobola, Iveta Plšková, Rudolf Hela and Lenka Bodnárová

Materials 2023, 16(3), 1010; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16031010 - 22 Jan 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1465

Abstract

The study of the resistance of plain concrete to high temperatures is a current topic across the field of civil engineering diagnostics. It is a type of damage that affects all components in a complex way, and there are many ways to describe and diagnose this degradation process and the resulting condition of the concrete. With regard to resistance to high temperatures, phenomena such as explosive spalling or partial creep of the material may occur. The resulting condition of thermally degraded concrete can be assessed by a number of destructive and nondestructive methods based on either physical or chemical principles. The aim of this paper is to present a comparison of nondestructive testing of selected concrete mixtures and the subsequent classification of the condition after thermal degradation. In this sense, a classification model based on supervised machine learning principles is proposed, in which the thermal degradation of the selected test specimens are known classes. The whole test set was divided into five mixtures, each with seven temperature classes in 200 °C steps from 200 °C up to 1200 °C. The output of the paper is a comparison of the different settings of the classification model and validation algorithm in relation to the observed parameters and the resulting model accuracy. The classification is done by using parameters obtained by the acoustic NDT Impact-Echo method and image-processing tools. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Materials)

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21 pages, 23161 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Influence of a Flat Polyimide Inlay on the Propagation of Guided Ultrasonic Waves in a Narrow GFRP-Specimen

by Liv Rittmeier, Thomas Roloff, Natalie Rauter, Andrey Mikhaylenko, Jan Niklas Haus, Rolf Lammering, Andreas Dietzel and Michael Sinapius

Materials 2022, 15(19), 6752; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15196752 - 29 Sep 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1213

Abstract

Structural health monitoring systems for composite laminates using guided ultrasonic waves become more versatile with the structural integration of sensors. However, the data generated within these sensors have to be transmitted from the laminate to the outside, where polyimide-based printed circuit boards play a major role. This study investigates, to what extent integrated polyimide inlays with applied sensor bodies influence the guided ultrasonic wave propagation in glass fiber-reinforced polymer specimens. For reasons of resource efficiency, narrow specimens are used. Numerical simulations of a damping-free specimen indicate reflections of the

S_{0}

-mode at the integrated inlay. This is validated experimentally with an air-coupled ultrasonic technique and a 3D laser Doppler vibrometry measurement. The experimental data are evaluated with a method including temporal and spatial continuous wavelet transformations to clearly identify periodically occurring wave packages as edge reflections and distinguish them from possible inlay reflections. However, even when separating in-plane and out-of-plane movements using the 3D measurement, no reflections at the inlays are detected. This leads to the conclusion that polyimide inlays are well suited as substrates for printed circuit boards integrated into fiber-reinforced polymer structures for structural health monitoring, since they do not significantly influence the wave propagation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Materials)

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19 pages, 5910 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Numerical Analysis of Guided Waves to Improve Damage Detection and Localization in Multilayered CFRP Panel

by Mastan Raja Papanaboina, Elena Jasiuniene, Egidijus Žukauskas and Liudas Mažeika

Materials 2022, 15(10), 3466; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15103466 - 11 May 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1563

Abstract

Multilayered carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) are increasingly used in aircraft components because of their superior mechanical properties. However, composite materials are vulnerable to impact loads, resulting in delamination-type damage which, if unnoticed, could lead to catastrophic structural failure. The objective of this research was to investigate possibilities to improve damage detection and the localization using signal processing methods. Numerical modeling using the semi-analytical finite element (SAFE) method was performed to obtain guided wave dispersion curves and to perform modal analysis. From the modal analysis,

A_{0}

mode for inspection of the composite with delamination type defects was selected. From the numerical simulation,

A_{0}

mode interaction with delamination along the longitudinal direction was analyzed and the location of the defect was estimated by measuring the time of flight (ToF) of the signal using Hilbert transform (HT) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT). The CWT has shown better results in estimating the delamination location compared with HT. The depth of delamination was characterized in the frequency domain by comparing the amplitude of the

A_{0}

mode. Inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) is recommended to reconstruct the reflected and transmitted modes for better damage detection and to reduce the complexity of signal interpretation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Materials)

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