Built-in structural diagnostic with the SMART LayerTM and SMART SuitcaseTM

Abstract Safety and reliability are critical factors in the usage of in-service structures. Undetected structural damages have the likelihood to grow and lead to catastrophic failures, loss of human lives and financial loss. Real-life examples of structural failure occur in airline crashes, rocket/launch vehicle explosions, building and bridge collapses. In order to minimise the possibility of failure, structures have traditionally been designed with a safety factor. However, this may be insufficient since the service conditions under which different structures operate can vary. Over time, the effect of these small variations can accumulate, resulting in a significant difference in their safety level and their residual life. One possible method of ensuring structural safety is to inspect structures frequently to keep abreast of their structural condition. Unfortunately, regular usage of current structural inspection methods can be expensive and labour intensive. Current inspection techniques such as X-ray, ultrasound, c-scan and thermal imaging are time consuming, expensive and rely heavily on human interpretation. Furthermore, they cannot be applied to inaccessible areas and in some cases may require structures to be disassembled entirely. Quite often, the inspection equipment is available only at specialised facilities, thus requiring structures to be removed from service and sent to these facilities for inspection thereby further increasing operating cost [1–3] .