Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) based on ultrasonic guided waves, so-called Lamb waves, is a promising method for in-service inspection of composite structures without time consuming scan-ning like conventional ultrasonic techniques. Lamb waves are able to propagate over large dis-tances and can be easily excited and received by a network of piezoceramic actuators and sen-sors. In principle different kinds of structural defects can be detected and located by analyzing the sensor signals. The paper describes diverse research activities in the topic of Structural Health Monitoring. These activities are concentrating on the visualisation of Lamb wave propagation fields based on air-coupled ultrasonic technique, the simulation of virtual sensors, mode selective actua-tors as well as manufacturing of actuator and sensor networks. Furthermore, the paper shows the development of a SHM system for impact detection in a helicopter tailboom (Eurocopter - EC 135).