Practical Structural Health Monitoring Systems in Large Space Structures

This paper is a summary of recent research efforts of the author's group on intelligent structural health monitoring (SHM) systems, including both system integration technologies and engineering applications. A key design feature of intelligent SHM system is the collocation of different types of sensors and the tight integration of multi-functional subsystems to provide the opportunity to self-interrogate measurement data. In particular, there is strong interest in using various sensing units to build SHM systems that interrogate structural data for signs of damage or danger. The paper has reviewed the design of a number of different intelligent SHM systems prototypes that have been designed explicitly for real SHM applications. These practical projects include the Shenzhen Civic Center (the first health monitoring system on a large space structure in China), the Nation Aquatic Center, also known as the "Water Cubic" (the Natatorium of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games), the Shenzhen Vanke Center of a cable truss structure, and the Shenzhen Bay Stadium (the opening ceremony and main stadium of the 2011 Summer Universiade). Real applications on these large space structures showcase the accuracy and reliability of the proposed intelligent SHM systems installed.