Predictability of catastrophic events; a new approach for Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

We present a non-traditional general methodology for the prediction of breakdown of engineering structures, based on a global top-down monitoring of the health of the structure modelled by the theory of critical rupture. The new Acceptance Test Plan integrating the resulting Predictive Acoustic Emission procedure has been successfully applied to the prediction of the breakdown of composite over-wrapped high pressure vessels which are currently produced for the Ariane 5 launcher by EADS Launch Vehicles. This new approach should be an efficient tool more generally in Structural Health Monitoring service, especially for the prediction of the residual margins and lifetimes of heterogeneous structures which constitutes the main issue of SHM in civil infrastructures.