USiegen is a university offering a broad scope of study programmes, among them natural and engineering sciences, to 13000 students with 231 professors and 1600 scientific and administrative staff. The research group led by Prof. Fritzen is dealing intensively with the development and application of methods for damage diagnosis and structural health monitoring (SHM), documented by more than 140 publications and a co-authored monograph on SHM.
Presently, the group has 13 permanent and fixed-term scientists and staff as well as six graduate students. The work focuses on vibration- as well as wave propagation-based SHM principles and deals with the development of methods including software tools for SHM data analysis, evaluation and decision-making. Algorithms for optimal sensor placement and new observer-based methods for monitoring of external forces have been developed. „Smart Structures“-techniques related to SHM, have been applied to metal and composite structures.
In HiPRWind, USiegen will be in charge of structural health monitoring and damage diagnosis for various components of the new wind energy plant (floating body, tower, rotor blades) in WP6. Special methods for vibration data analysis and load reconstruction will be developed.