Developing an integrated structural health monitoring and damage prognosis (SHM-DP) framework for predicting the fatigue life of adhesively-bonded composite joints

Fatigue-driven damage propagation is one of the most unpredictable failure mechanisms for a large variety of mechanical and structural systems fabricated with lightweight composite materials subjected to cyclic and/or random operational loads during their service life. In particular, the adhesive joints, bonding together the various subassemblies of these types of systems, are widely recognized as one of the most fatigue-sensitive structural components. In this perspective, the present chapter discusses an integrated structural health monitoring and damage prognosis framework capable of recursively predicting the time-varying reliability and remaining fatigue life of adhesively-bonded composite joints. The proposed framework also sets the rational basis for deploying a cost-efficient reliability-based inspection and maintenance plan for the system being monitored.