2087. Smart Materials and Structures: A Weight Saving Proposition

Paper

Abstract

In the early days, structural integrity was ensured by overdesigning. As safety margins have decreased, requirements for preventive inspection and maintenance have increased. Structures in the near future will be able to prevent damage to a certain extent, able to sense the damage, and survive the damage by incorporating adaptive control. They will also be able to alert us to proper maintenance. These structures are termed as ”smart structures.” Remarkable inventions in sensor technology, discoveries of new materials, and increase in computing capabilities have made it possible for the first time to build smart structures. These structures have to be highly redundant, self testing, damage survivable, and fault tolerant.