The main objective of the GW4SHM project was to pave the way for the industrial application of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) using Guided Ultrasonic Waves (GW) by developing valuable tools and technologies to facilitate the application of SHM in an industrial context and to transfer knowledge from academia to practice. The project was not expected to deliver prototypes or software tools for commercialisation. Rather, the outcome of the project is to facilitate the introduction of new SHM approaches to the market. The tools developed to support this process are methods for analysing ultrasonic wave propagation and dispersion relationships in industrially relevant structures such as pipelines and fibre reinforced plastics, and for optimising sensor placement. In future partnerships between the consortium members and industrial players, these tools will be an essential part of SHM systems. It is expected that some of the numerical algorithms developed in GW4SHM will be incorporated into commercially available software tools or open access toolboxes.
For the development of efficient simulation tools, it can be summarised that the ESRs have extended their respective numerical methods. During the secondments, the various simulation methods were tested and validated against each other. The resulting efficient simulation tools and accurate numerical models for predicting excitation, wave propagation and mode-flaw interaction in realistic structures are or will be available in commercial simulation tools as well as in open source projects.
The development of tomographic algorithms for metallic structures, pipes and pipe bends has been successfully completed. Sensor concepts for integration into realistic components have only been developed. The goal of processing GW sensor signals using traditional and machine learning algorithms was achieved. A framework for describing the influence of applied sensors has been developed and methodologies for using SHM results for condition based maintenance and prediction of remaining useful life are now available.
The ESRs developed extensions of the POD (Probability of Detection) concept and highly efficient simulation frameworks for analysing the reliability of SHM systems as a basis for qualification, certification and standardisation of SHM techniques. They extended the work on reliability assessment with methodologies for predicting remaining useful life, which is beyond the scope of the project.
The GW4SHM project organised six network-wide training events. The first two took place as online events, the others as face-to-face meetings at the premises of the respective beneficiaries. The final training event, planned as a participation in an international conference, was organised in Lisbon. There, all ESRs presented their results to a wide audience from industry and academia at the European Conference on NDT (ECNDT2023).
A highlight of the dissemination strategy was the presentation of the project at the IEEE International Ultrasonic Symposium in Venice in 2022, where we had a booth with selected results of the project work, and the participation of all ESRs at the 13th European Conference on NDT in Lisbon in the summer of 2023.
For scientific dissemination, more than 65 scientific articles and contributions to national and international conferences have already been published by the ESRs of GW4SHM, and another 6 publications are submitted and under review. It is expected that all ESRs will have defended their PhD thesis by the end of 2025.
