Topic  of Invited talk

Application of Optical Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures; Present and Future Trends”

Abstract:

Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) components are being increasingly used in a wider range of structural applications in space, aerospace, automobile, civil and chemical engineering fields. Most of these components have replaced traditional metallic load bearing structures. As such, a big demand for continuous monitoring of structural health and integrity in order to maintain a high level of operational safety. Most importantly, the idea of internal condition monitoring of the structure reveals itself as a much more useful technique for the early detection of defects/damage in the structure.  This internal monitoring demands embeddable transducers that able to withstand a harsh operating environment during the entire lifetime of the structure. There are many non-destructive test (NDT) procedures available for damage detection of composite structures which are not possible to use in situ monitoring of structural health and integrity.  Recent advances in fibre optic sensor technologies have provided great opportunities to develop more sophisticated in situ Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems.  This provides the present and future usages of fibre optic sensors and the associated challenges of using embedded sensors in in-situ SHM systems of FRP components/structures.  Further, an outline of present research work of SHM/smart structures group at Future Material Centre (CFM), USQ will be presented.

Biography

Dr. Epaarachchi has been an active researcher in the field of development of “SmartMaterials” and “structural Health Monitoring Systems for Advanced Composite Structures”for more than 10 years. Due to his reputation in those fields, he has been invited to organisespecial sessions on SHM in prestigious international composite conferences such as ACCM,and ICCM. He was nominated as the Organizing Chair of 4th International Conference onSmart Materials and Nano-Technology in Engineering. He has been invited as International Technical Committeemember of many International conferences such as Dynamics of Materials (DYMAT) a biannualconference by European organization for Dynamics of Materials, Photonic Sensors,ICCM21. He was an invited to edit an special issue of International Journal Structural HealthMonitoring and now he is working as an associate editor for the same journal. He is a longterm research associate of Inter-disciplinary Photonic Centre (IPL) of the University ofSydney. Dr.Epaarachchi was a visiting researcher at Advanced Composites Centre forInnovation and Science (ACCIS), Bristol University UK. He is has research collaborationwith Airframe Division of Defence Science Technology Organisation (DSTO), Australia.Frequently he serves as an reviewer for many high ranking international journals such asComposite A:, Composite B, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Structural HealthMonitoring, Sensors and Actuators etc. He was invited as keynote speaker for InternationalConference on Fibre-optic and Photonic Sensors for Industrial and Safety Applications(OFSIS2015), Jinan, China, January 2015 and he delivered a talk on “Application of FibreOptic Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures; Present and FutureTrends”.