Electro Mechanical Impedance signatures for Timber

Electro Mechanical Impedance signatures for TimberRe visiting natural disasters like the recent Haiti earthquake (12 Jan 2010) or Katrina (cyclones) reminds the necessity to have better housing infrastructure with robust monitoring systems in USA. Traditionally wood is accepted as excellent rehabilitation material, after any disaster. The key issue which dampens the life of these rehabilitated structure is unnecessary deposits (nails, screws, bolts etc) damages due to insect attack. Thus, a few

Re-visiting natural disasters like the recent Haiti earthquake (12 Jan 2010) or Katrina (cyclones) reminds the necessity to have better housing infrastructure with robust monitoring systems in USA. Traditionally wood is accepted as excellent rehabilitation material, after any disaster. The key issue which dampens the life of these rehabilitated structure is unnecessary deposits (nails, screws, bolts etc) / damages due to insect attack. Thus, a few health monitoring techniques have emerged in the recent past using smart materials. They are used in various techniques to monitor health of engineering structures. Electromechanical Impedance (EMI) technique is one such technique, which uses PZTs (or MFCs). This is simple yet robust to detect variations in the integrity of structures. In this book, various smart materials are discussed which are relevant to structural health Especially EMI technique to monitor timber is presented.