Active and passive interaction mechanism of smart materials for health monitoring of engineering structures: a review.

Smart materials when interact with engineering structures, should have the capability to sense, measure, process, and detect any change in the selected variables (stress, damage)at critical locations. These smart materials can be classified into active and passive depending on the type of the structure, variables to be monitored, and interaction mechanism due to surface bonding or embedment. Some of the prominent smart materials are piezoelectric materials, micro fiber composite, polymers, shape memory alloys, electrostrictive and magnetostrictive materials, electrorheological and magnetorheological fluids and fiber optics. In addition, host structures do have the properties to support or repel the usage of smart materials inside or on it. This paper presents some of the most widely used smart materials and their interaction mechanism for structural health monitoring of engineering structures.