Design of civil structures is founded on principles of solid mechanics, structural analysis, and material science, and use stresses and deflections as limit criteria. Therefore, evaluation of stresses and deflections in real-life settings became one of the central aims of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) of structures. However, direct measurement of stresses and deflections on real structures is, in general, practically impossible due to several limitations pertaining to sensing technologies, site conditions, and properties of structural materials. While cases exist, where stresses and deflections could be directly monitored, these cases are rather exceptions enabled by specific applications that cannot be generalized to many other cases.
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