The project ‘CHIMERA? - is there a CHance that Indexes and Measurements of the energy conversion Efficiency Reveal system Alterations?’ aims at studying a new approach to structural health monitoring (SHM) based on the analysis of the interaction between structures and the intelligent materials embedded in them. In these coupled systems, there is a continuous interaction between different physical domains, and thus a continuous conversion of energy. The CHIMERA? project aims to explore the possibility of using an indirect measure of the efficiency of this energy conversion for SHM purposes. This innovative approach can have a major impact due to its generality and robustness to variations in environmental and operating conditions.

The main goals of the project are:

• assess the feasibility of the use of measurements of efficiency of energy conversion for damage detection and evidence similarities between analytical formalizations for different intelligent materials;
• test method sensitivity to damage presence, severity and location;
• evaluate method behavior in presence of environmental and operational variability;
• test method feasibility on real-like damaged structures.

The research project CHIMERA? Is funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU, M4C2 I1.1, through Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN), grant n. 20225PKHWJ (CUP: D53D23003060006).