Structural Health Monitoring. An Introduction and Definitions

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is the lateral integration of a variety of different disciplines in engineering science. Starting from an engineering structural design point of view, it encompasses loads and damage monitoring including the various disciplines being related to this. Once SHM being defined as a system is realized, it needs to be implemented in a structure such that it generates the appropriate benefit in terms of life cycle cost. This article addresses what can be considered as SHM in that regard and how the benefit can be determined using mainly examples taken from aviation.