Many industrial set-ups nowadays rely on different types of gears to transmit rotational torque. A gear usually operates in a closed environment, immersed into lubricant (oil). Therefore, direct monitoring of its condition is not possible. We have constructed a pilot test bed in order to develop and test different methods for gear health monitoring and predicting the time of failure. In this pa...

One of the main motivating forces behind the rapidly emerging theory of decentralized, cooperative control is the idea that we can deploy large collections of agents over wide spatial domains to solve otherwise intractable surveillance and monitoring problems. However, it is inevitable that in such networks, the performance will deteriorate over time as resources, such as battery power, are dep...

Internet technologies are increasingly facilitating real-time monitoring of Bridges and Highways. The advances in wireless communications for instance, are allowing practical deployment for large extended systems. Sensor data, including video signals, can be used for longterm condition assessment, traffic-load regulation, emergency response, and seismic safety applications. Computer-based autom...

A unique shape memory alloy (SMA) restrainer cable is developed and tested to evaluate its effectiveness in limiting the hinge opening in bridges. The SMA cables, connected at the deck–abutment interface, are tested on a four-span, one-quarter scale, concrete slab bridge. The bridge is subjected to a suite of ground motion to assess the performance of the SMAs under different magnitudes of load...

Our skin reveals many aspects of our overall health, ethnicity, age, and social and physical environment. Its mechanical properties are often tested by practitioners as a first gauge of our status; for instance, applying light pressure with a finger on the skin can be used to give an indication of circulatory function, and a gentle pinch can provide information on the skin stiffness and hydrati...

1. Introduction The development of a real-time, in-service structural health monitoring and damage detection technique has recently attracted a large number of academic and industrial researchers. The goal of this research is to allow systems and structures to monitor their own integrity while in operation and throughout their lives in order to prevent catastrophic failures and to reduce the co...