Theory 14/Structural Health Monitoring
Sensors Follow Strain Energy
The claim
Sensor placement efficiency is set by the ratio of modal strain energy captured to the number of sensors, so placing all sensors in one region wastes the budget.
01Mechanism
A sensor informs most about the region whose strain it measures; coverage of the energy distribution sets what can be detected.
02Predictions
- P1Detection performance should track coverage per sensor.
- P2Uniform spacing should underperform energy-weighted placement.
03Refutation
Performance tracking sensor count alone would remove the placement effect.