Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Research Areas

• Composite structures
• Metallic Structures
• Concrete Structures

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Every engineered structure, no matter how well constructed, contains hidden flaws that are caused by its manufacturing process, service loads and degradation of its material due to aging. The safety and integrity of a structure can be severely compromised by the growth of these flaws unless they are detected and the structure is repaired at an early stage of their initiation. As an example, foreign object impact or fatigue loading in advanced composite structures can introduce hidden delaminations that can grow to a critical size and result in a catastrophic failure of the structure. Another area of concern is the rapidly increasing inventory of aging structures in both military and civilian applications, and there is increasing demand for extending their service life. Life extension of aging aircraft, aerospace and civil structures require an early detection of defects in their critical components through inspection and maintenance at regular intervals that are very costly and often ineffective or unnecessary. The life cycle cost of new and aging structures can greatly reduced if continuous and autonomous condition-based damage monitoring systems can be integrated into their design.

Therefore, development of efficient methodologies to determine the presence, location and severity of hidden damage in critical structural components is an important task in the design and construction of structural health monitoring systems in aging as well as new structures. To meet this objective, wave propgation and vibration based approaches are considered.

Prof. Sauvik Banerjee, Department of Civil Engineering,  IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, Email- sauvik@civil.iitb.ac.in, Tel: +91-22-25767343.