Distributed Collaborative Environment for Simulation-Based Design and Acquisition

The monitoring and analysis of the structural integrity of buildings, bridges and machines is increasingly important as the average age of these structures increases and as buildings are built in more locations which are prone to natural disasters.Structural monitoring can be accomplished through the addition of a magnetostrictive material to structural members, either directly or through a composite. Changes in the structure are reflected in stress-induced changes in the magnetic signature fromthe magnetostrictive material. Microfluxgate sensors were demonstrated in Phase I to be capable of detecting such changes and to be suitable for integration with application specific integrated circuits (ASIC's) for inexpensive mass production. In PhaseII, the ASIC will be produced and the microfluxgate integrated with it, resulting in a commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) product. An array of such integrated sensors will be fabricated and tested, and a hand-held reading instrument and a transducer will bedesigned and prototyped. The transducer will be designed to be used with commercially available data transmission and collection instrumentation systems. In Phase III, final structural monitoring equipment will be designed and deployed. Commercialproducts will also be designed for non-structural markets.