This report presents a formal approach for optimizing the shape of freely supported isotropic plates to withstand air blast loading. Unique difficulties are presented by the nature of shortduration dynamic loading, viz. transient dynamic response, monitoring of maximum plastic strain failure at every point in the panel over time, optimizers that can handle non-differentiable, nonconvex and comp...

The significance of strain measurement is obvious for the analysis of Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites. Conventional strain measurement methods are sufficient for static testing in general. Nevertheless, if the requirements exceed the capabilities of these conventional methods, more sophisticated techniques are necessary to obtain strain data. Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors have man...

Critical buildings such as hospitals and police stations must remain functional immediately following a major earthquake event. Due to earthquake effects, they often experience large strains, leading to progressive collapses. Therefore, monitoring and assessing the large strain condition of critical buildings is of paramount importance to post-earthquake responses and evacuations in earthquake-...

Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE), one of the most established fabrication process for nanostructures with precise control at atomic level of morphology, thickness and chemical composition, has demonstrated recently extended capabilities for the selfassembly and self organization of low dimensional structures such as Quantum Dots (QD) and Quantum Wires (QW). Its main advantage is the compatibility o...

Corrosion of concrete reinforcement members has been recognized as a predominant structural deterioration mechanism for steel reinforced concrete structures. Many corrosion detection techniques have been developed for reinforced concrete structures, but a dependable one is more than desired. Acoustic emission technique and fiber optic sensing have emerged as new tools in the field of structural...

This report presents the late follow-up of a case of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy with good clinical outcome and improved left ventricular global systolic function. However, there was persistence of significant regional longitudinal systolic dysfunction evaluated using a new echocardiographic technique (speckle tracking), with corresponding measures of strain (S) and strain rate (SR). We emphasize ...

A novel configuration of a distributed fiber sensor by Brillouin gain analysis has been developed for temperature and strain monitoring. It uses a single laser source, and the required light signals are all generated with an electro-optic modulator, resulting in high stability and excellent reliability of the measuring setup. Measurement of the induced strain in a wound fiber is presented as a ...

This article summarizes the development of wireless strain sensing systems for a variety of customer driven structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. By combining advanced, low power microprocessors, flexible software operating modes, and low power signal conditioners, these systems were optimized for very low power operation, while permitting high speed data logging and wireless communi...

A minimum configuration Michelson fiber-optic low-coherence interferometric quasi-distributed sensing system is proposed that permits absolute length measurement in remote reflective sensor arrays. The sensor's reflective signal characteristics have been analyzed, and the relationship between intensities of light and number of sensors is given for evaluation of multiplexing potential. The propo...

Fiber Bragg gratings written in highly birefringent microstructured optical fiber with a dedicated design are embedded in a composite fiber-reinforced polymer. The Bragg peak wavelength shifts are measured under controlled axial and transversal strain and during thermal cycling of the composite sample. We obtain a sensitivity to transversal strain that exceeds values reported earlier in literat...