In-Situ Composite Health Monitoring for Hypersonic Vehicles

Emerging hypersonic vehicles rely heavily on advanced, highly engineered materials to ensure their survivability under the extreme conditions under which they must operate.  Understanding the performance of these materials both within and beyond the lab is critical to ensuring the DoD maintains its technology superiority in this domain.  While simulation, modeling, and laboratory-based testing are important to the design and construction of these materials, understanding their actual performance during field testing and mission operations would be a significant boon to the DoD.   The project team will study the feasibility of developing an in-situ composite health monitoring system for use in composite vehicles.