Extensions of the Impedance-based Structural Health Monitoring Technique

The objective of this chapter is to report the feasibility of using the impedance-based health monitoring technique for structures in an extremely high-temperature environment. The needs for on-line health monitoring system for these structures, such as steam pipes and boilers in power plants, are in great demand to avoid catastrophic failures. Currently, power plants rely on numerical methods and manual inspection to estimate the conditions of these structures, however, these techniques are not suitable for the prediction of incipient type of damage. A new approach using fiber-optic strain and temperature sensors was developed and investigated for power plant components and high-temperature applications, but ended in inconclusive results (Narendran and Weiss, 1996).