Smart materials and elements

In structural health monitoring, smart materials are those having a property that can be directly or indirectly changed by the structural behavior in order to provide an assessment of the structural condition or to increase the structural reliability. Our research on photonic crystals (PhCs) aims to exploit the correlations that exists between the strain and the wavelength of the light reflected by certain materials. The results shows that microstructure exhibiting auxetic behavior would significantly increase the resolution of sensors based on photonic crystals, making feasible their use for civil applications. The group also carries out research and provide consultants to companies in the field of industrial design of prefabricated sensor systems and structural elements. This activity includes: support to prefabrication industry to design innovative model of structural elements; development of prototypes of smart structural elements, incorporating sensing computational and self-diagnosis capabilities.