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2025-2026 / MECA0535-1

Structural health monitoring

Duration

26h Th, 26h Pr

Number of credits

 Msc. in Mechanical Engineering, professional focus in materials and manufacturing5 crédits 
 Master Msc. in Mechanical engineering, professional focus in mechatronics5 crédits 
 Master MSc. in Mechanical Engineering, professional focus in sustainable automotive engineering5 crédits 
 Msc. in Mechanical Engineering, professional focus in Offshore Structure Modeling5 crédits 

Lecturer

Wout Weijtjens

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the first semester, review in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The purpose of this course is to provide a broad understanding of the field of structural health monitoring with a particular focus on monitoring offshore structures and offshore wind turbines in particular. The course starts from defining and motivating SHM in the context of offshore wind energy, introduces the technologies that enable SHM, discusses key applications to sufficient depth to master the topic, touches on various other 'hot' topics including the digital twin and the use of Artificial intelligence.

 

The following topics are covered:




  • General introduction to Structural Health Monitoring
  • Data, Data Acquisition and sensors
  • Structural dynamics and Operational Modal Analysis
  • Load monitoring and Fatigue Life Assessment
  • The Digital Twin
  • The role of AI in SHM
  • Various minor topics; e.g. Floating Wind, Corrosions, ....
The course includes 5 workshops:

- Workshop 1 : Hands on with sensors (pt1)
- Workshop 2 : Hands on with sensors (pt2)
- Workshop 3 : Operational modal analysis of OWT
- Workshop 4 : An introduction of handling fatigue data using python
- Workshop 5 : AI for SHM

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

At the end of the course, the student should:



  • Be able to situate the role of SHM within the context of engineering and the offshore wind energy sector in particular
  • Understand the sensor technology used in the field of SHM, including being able to motivate the choice for particular sensor solution and having some grip on the practical challenges associated with handling them
  • Understand how to access, handle and process data in the context of SHM
  • Understand how structural dynamics can be used to monitor structural health, and perform operational modal analysis to real world data using python.
  • Understand the concept of load monitoring, and how to handle fatigue data using python
  • Understand the potential role of a digital twin in structural health monitoring
  • Have a grip on smaller topics, understanding the problems and challenges associated with them
  • Understand the potential of AI in SHM, but become aware of the limitations and potential pitfalls. As well as using AI in python to handle SHM data.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

To efficiently follow this course, it is important to have basic knowledge  in various engineering topics and mathematics.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course


Further information:

Lectures are mainly theoretical with the exception of 5 workshops held throughout the year.

 The course is organized during the first semester over 12 weeks including:  7  lectures and 5 workshops. The planning of the course is presented during the first lecture. Room and timing can be found on CELCAT. Unless instructed otherwise.

Course materials and recommended or required readings

Platform(s) used for course materials:
- eCampus


Further information:

The course material are the slides and the jupyter notebooks during the workshops. 

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- In-person

oral exam

Written work / report


Further information:

The exam  in the first session is organized oral and comprises two parts;

  • A part with written preparation (open book during preparation)
  • A closed-book, oral examination covering the entire course, including the workshops
Both parts are weighted equally (40% each of the final grade, 80% in total for the oral exam)

A single written workshop report, submitted two weeks after the final workshop. Covering all workshops, is submitted by every student. It accounts for 20% of the final grade.

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

The lectures are taught by Prof. Weijtjens, who is a visiting professor and has no office at ULg.  The workshops are organized with the support of external contributors from both industry and academia

All course material is posted weekly on e-campus. 

 Questions are best directed via mail.

Note that, depending on the sanitary situation, the course organization might need to be adapted.

Contacts

Students are encouraged to actively interact with the instructors, also outside of the lectures.

Association of one or more MOOCs