ABSTRACT
Submarines have been widely utilized as military vessels and they play a significant role in many large navies performing tasks like attacking warships, near-shore protection, reconnaissance and so forth. In fact, submarines usually suffer from harsh marine environments and the predominated load is the hydrostatic pressure, which is entirely withstood by the pressure hulls of the submarine. Therefore, it is necessary to install a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system onboard submarines to obtain accurate information regarding structural condition and protect submarines in real time. Moreover, SHM can also provide further information about the performance of the pressure hulls in deep sea states. The inverse Finite Element Method (iFEM) is one the most powerful and robust shape-sensing methodologies that can be practically used to perform accurate SHM of submarines. The main goal of this study is to demonstrate the applicability of iFEM to SHM of submarines with the focus on sensor placement on a typical submarine pressure hull.
