Structural Health Monitoring (SHM)

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) denotes the ability to detect and interpret adverse "changes" in a structure in order to reduce life-cycle costs and improve reliability. In this exciting field, non-invasive damage detection techniques are integrated into a structure to continuously monitor components for damage such as cracks or delamination. SHM is receiving increasing attention, particularly from the commercial and military aviation community, in order to eliminate scheduled manual inspections in lieu of condition-based maintenance for more efficient design practices and more accurate component repair and replacement decisions. This methodology shift could result in a significant savings in the overall cost of ownership of a vehicle, as well as significant gains in operational safety.

MDC has emerged as an industry leader for SHM , driving this technology towards its first practical implementation of commercial products. Through collaboration with a talented team of universities, small businesses, government agencies and major aerospace corporations, MDC has developed the M.E.T.I.-System suite of SHM devices to suit the needs of nearly any component operating in a variety of environments. At the core of each of these devices are a set of common components that are used as the system infrastructure, including a piezoelectric actuator and sensor, a microprocessor, a datalogger, a function generator, a rechargeable polymer battery and a wireless chip, all enclosed in a package less than 1" in diameter. Variations of these devices have been produced to meet custom geometries, to support analog, digital or wireless signal transmission, and to have increased sensitivity to particular damage modes. This SHM infrastructure is flexible enough to accept a large variety of sensors to support most common damage detection methods (Lamb waves, Modal Analysis, Acoustic Emission, etc.) with little hardware modifications. MDC has also developed a software package to complement the M.E.T.I.-System to manage the SHM process by facilitating data collection, fusion, interpretation and dissemination. Robust proprietary algorithms within the software can detect miniscule "changes" in a system, and subsequently identify the presence, location, severity and type of damage with a very low probability of false positives.

Click here for a downloadable introduction to SHM presentation and for MDC's SHM capabilities.