Structural health monitoring using dual metamaterial sensors for locating defects in the structure

• Main Author: Song, Darrell Jiajun
• Other Authors: Soh Chee Kiong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Structures and design
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/74750
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In several real applications, smart material based structural health monitoring (SHM) sensors have been employed to detect structural failures. In the recent years, policies of several Governments across the globe, including Singapore, drastically enhanced the (a) significance of SHM and (b) implicit need to improve the existing technologies. The shift in policies is due to rapid increase in failures of bridges, tunnels and civil infrastructures in the recent past. Moreover, the realization of the inevitable aging and degradation of the structures due to environmental factors is a concern for several developed and developing nations. Currently, sensors such as piezoceramic transducers, piezoelectric diaphragm, fiber optical sensors are widely used in the industry, but these sensors would require contact with the host structure under investigation. However, the emergence of metamaterial-based SHM technique would be able to overcome this limitation. As this technique is relatively new to academia and engineering industry, more research and development is required to investigate the applications of such sensors. Recently, metamaterial sensors developed in NTU were successfully applied for preliminary SHM experiments. Especially, single localized surface plasmons (known as metamaterial) are proven to be capable of load detection. This final year project aimed to utilize dual localized surface plasmons sensors to study the behavior of the structure while subjected to axial loading and fatigue failure. This project also exhibited a simple application that incorporates wireless sensing network and robotics so as to illustrate the application of both contact and contactless metamaterial SHM techniques.