A review of vibration-based structural health monitoring with special emphasis on composite materials

Structural health monitoring and damage detection techniques are tools of great importance in the off-shore, civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineering communities, both for safety reasons and because of the economic benefits that can result. The need to be able to detect damage in complex structures has led to the development of a vast range of techniques, of which many are based upon structural vibration analysis. In the present article, some of the latest advances in Structural Health Monitoring and Damage Detection are reviewed, with an emphasis on composite structures on the grounds that this class of materials currently has a wide range of engineering applications. FOREWORD-It should be noted that this review is not intended to be a general, all-encompassing review covering the whole range of structural health monitoring (SHM); it was planned as the starting point for a study focusing on damage detection, localization and assessment for certain kinds of structure. Thus, the line of thought behind the search and the structure of this review is a result of objectives beyond the scope of the paper itself. Nevertheless, it was considered that, once the above was understood, an updated synopsis such as this could also be useful for other researchers in the same field. ©2006 SAGE Publications.