Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is the science and application of sensing and actuation features to become an integral part of engineering structures and to allow structures’ life cycle performance to be seen from a holistic point of view. Within this, diagnostics and prognostics are therefore key elements. SHM emerged from the fields of structural mechanics and smart structures and laterally encompasses disciplines such as structural dynamics, materials and structures, fatigue and fracture, non-destructive testing and evaluation (NDT & E), sensors and actuators, microelectronics, signal processing including machine learning and possibly much more. Resulting SHM systems being realized therefore require a multidisciplinary view. The objective of SHM is to allow engineers to holistically manage the operation of engineering structures through the structures’ life cycle, leading to new breakthroughs in structural engineering.

The European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring (EWSHM) dates back to the year 2000, where a first event was held in Madrid/Spain organized by Prof. Alfredo Güemes and where a decision was made, to run such a workshop every two years in alteration to the International Workshop on SHM (IWSHM) held every other year at Stanford University in California/USA. A further link exists to the Asia-Pacific Workshop on SHM (APWSHM), which is held on a usually biannual basis as well in the odd years. The biannual sequence of EWSHM has been continuously kept, with an exception in 2020, due to COVID-19. It has been held every time in a different city throughout Europe, the last successfully held in Palermo/Italy in 2022. 

Although named a ‘workshop’, EWSHM has so far very much been run like a conference. Over the years the number of exhibitors at EWSHM has gradually increased as well as the demonstration of potential applications. EWSHM 2024 will therefore further move along this track in a way, that it will extend the portion of SHM demonstration in view of getting the obstacles of SHM application more obvious to a broader audience and to hopefully find ways on how to get such obstacles overcome. Different major demonstrators are therefore intended to be made available at EWSHM 2024, where SHM related technologies ready for application will be additionally presented and discussed along the different sessions within the workshop.