SHM Professions

A student has asked me to point out which courses he should take, if he is interested in working in Structural Health Monitoring in the future.

SHM is a very multidisciplinary field that requires a close cooperation between professionals of different fields. A true SHM professional should therefore be a generalist, who knows enough about the different technologies and professions that revolve around SHM. This will enable him to interface to the specialist in each field and help them interact effectively in a specific SHM project. Another choice is to become a specialist in one of those fields and work as part of an SHM team.

Here is a list of professions and specialities that I consider as central for SHM.

Engineering

• Civil, Geotechnical, Aerospace, Structural, Automotive, Pipeline Engineering
• Theory of Materials
• Material Science
• Finite Element Analysis
• System Identification (data analysis)
• Risk Analysis

Measurement

• Data Acquisition Systems
• Sensors (electrical, fiber optics, piezo materials,...)
• Geodesy
• Fundamentals of Measurement Theory and Errors

Data

• Database Management
• Telecommunications
• Data Mining and Analysis
• Human Interface Design
• Web publishing

Business and People

• Business Administration
• Project Management
• Team Management