Jan Holnicki-Szulc - Böcker

Smart technologies comprise a dynamic new interdisciplinary research field that encompasses a wide spectrum of engineering applications including, but not limited to, intelligent structures and materials, actuators, sensors and structural observability, control systems and software tools for the design of adaptive structures. Smart technologies focus on the issues surrounding the safety and integrity of engineering systems. Smart Technologies for Safety Engineering presents the achievements of ten years of research from the Smart-Tech Centre applied to some of the key issues of safety engineering. Results presented include: Original methods and software tools for modelling, design, simulation and control of adaptive structures and applicability of the adaptive concept to the design of structures for extreme loads;Application of the smart-tech concept to hot research topics and emerging engineering issues including health monitoring of structures and engineering systems, monitoring of loading conditions, automatic structural adaptation to unpredictable, randomly changing dynamic conditions and the optimal design of adaptive structures and engineering systems;Numerically efficient and original software packages that can be used for the design of adaptive, as well as passive (without control devices) structures.The Virtual Distortion Method, which has been developed especially for fast reanalysis of structures and systems and exact sensitivity analysis, allowing for effective modelling, design, health monitoring and control of smart engineering systems.The original research and practical applications in Smart Technologies for Safety Engineering will appeal to a broad spectrum of engineers, researchers, professors and graduate students involved in the research, design and development of widely understood  adaptronics and mechatronics, including smart structures and materials, adaptive impact absorption, health and load monitoring, vibration control, vibroacoustics and related issues.

This book presents the general concept of the Virtual Distortion Method with the necessary theoretical background and a number of its applications to problems of structural analysis and design. The approach presented allows for the development of efficient computational methods for the numerical analysis of problems where, e.g., local failures, the temperature field or permanent plastic deformations are described by virtual distortions. On the other hand, properly modelled (fictitious) virtual distortions can be used to simulate structural modifications such as material redistribution applicable in the optimal redesign process. Finally, virtual distortions can be used to mimic the behaviour of actuators in active structural control problems: shape, stress or vibration control. A number of numerical algorithms are developed, enabling one to solve various problems of structural analysis, design and control.

Smart (intelligent) structures have been the focus of a great deal of research interest. In this book, leading researchers report the state of the art and discuss ideas, results and trends in 43 contributions, covering fundamental research issues, the role of intelligent monitoring in structural identification and damage assessment, and the potential of automatic control systems in achieving a desired structural behaviour. It also covers a number of practical issues in the analysis and design of smart structures in mechanical and civil engineering applications.

Smart (intelligent) structures have been the focus of a great deal of research interest. In this book, leading researchers report the state of the art and discuss ideas, results and trends in 43 contributions, covering fundamental research issues, the role of intelligent monitoring in structural identification and damage assessment, and the potential of automatic control systems in achieving a desired structural behaviour. It also covers a number of practical issues in the analysis and design of smart structures in mechanical and civil engineering applications.

This book collects invited lectures presented at the AMAS & ECCOMAS Workshop/Thematic Conference SMART�03 on Smart Materials and Structures. The conference was held in Jadwisin, Poland near Warsaw, 2-5 September 2003. It was organized by the Advanced Materials and Structures (AMAS) Centre of Excellence at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research (IFTR) in Warsaw and ECCOMAS - the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and SMART-TECH Centre at IFTR. The goal of the workshop was to bring together and consolidate the community of Smart Materials and Structures in Europe. The workshop program was grouped into the topics Structural Control, Vibration Control and Dynamics, Damage Identification, and Smart Materials.

Virtual distortions are incompatible deIormations imposed on structures (e. g. , by nonhomogeneous heating or by local imperIections) causing a compatible state OI deIormation (initial deformations) and a selI-equilibrated state OI stress (initial stresses). The theory OI virtual distortions provides an eIIicient tool which can be used to treat many problems that diIIer Irom the physical point OI view. Thermal stresses, material deIects, residual stresses in plasticity are examples OI problems that can be analysed emploing the virtual distortions approach, where the temperature Iield, dislocations and plastic distortions (permanent plastic deIormations) are described by virtual distortions. The presented approach allows the development OI eIIicient computational methods Ior numerical analysis OI such problems. States OI compatible deIormations and selI-equi1 ibrated stresses caused by virtual distortions in homogeneous and compound (biphase) bodies are analysed in the Iirst part OI the book. The results OI these considerations are explored in the next two chapters.The Iormulation OI the approach discussed in Chapter 1 and based on continuum mechanics was presented previously in the papers [5,17] while its application to the analysis OI skeletal structures was discussed in [47].