My team and I work in the areas of aircraft structural health monitoring, corrosion fatigue, and bio-mimetic materials & structures. A brief outline of each is provided below:

Aircraft Structural Health and Usage Monitoring

Structural health monitoring (SHM) refers to a system of sensors and instrumentation integrated with data processing tools deployed to assess the integrity of the structure. SHM systems are typically designed to provide usage and/or damage information with which one could diagnose current status of structural integrity or prognosticate on remaining useful life of the structure. This helps in reducing operational costs and enhancing aircraft reliability and availability. Thus, it has both strategic and economic significance.

Corrosion Fatigue

Corrosion in aircraft structures poses safety, economic and operational challenges. The approaches to address corrosion in aircraft have been mostly conservative and/or heuristic. Moreover, both civilian and military aircraft operators wish to maximize the life of their assets for strategic and economic reasons.It thus becomes imperative to develop more rigorous science-based metrics and methodologies for providing accurate and reliable diagnoses and prognoses on the structural integrity of corrosion-affected structures.

Bio-mimetic Materials and Structures

Flapping wing micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) comprise a group among the larger set of unmanned aerial vehicles. As the name suggests, the means of lift and thrust generation for this category of vehicles is by means of flapping wings. Nature has provided us with spectacular examples of these in the form of insects, birds and bats to base our designs on. While substantial work has been done to understand the aerodynamics and flight mechanics of these flying animals, much scope remains in the domains of materials, structural design, manufacturing and testing. Our research is focused on the materials, material characterization, fabrication processes, structural testing and modelling of insect wings with the goal of developing better wing designs for flapping micro aerial vehicles.

1. Development of Structural Health Monitoring System Using Fibre Optic Sensors
   PIs – G.M. Kamath
   Funding Agency - Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur [as Initiation Grant]
   Project Timeline - 2017-2019

2. Characterization and Modeling of Membranes for Inflatable Space Structures
   PIs – G.M. Kamath, P.M. Mohite (IITK), S. Kamle (IITK)
   Funding Agency - Indian Space Research Organization
   Project TImeline - 2018-2020

3. Development and demonstration of a fibre-optic sensor-based system for aircraft loads and usage monitoring
   PIs – G.M. Kamath, Ramesh Sundaram (CSIR-NAL, Bangalore), P.D. Mangalgiri (IITK)
   Funding Agency – Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) under the IMPacting Research INnovation and Technology (IMPRINT-2) Scheme
   Project TImeline - 2019-2022