A combined cross-disciplinary team of early career researchers, Kirsty McDougall and Kate Cheyne, mentored by experienced research leaders, Dr Joan Farrer and Professor Susannah Hagan, have secured funding to develop a new intelligent textile that can be embedded into structural systems to sense earth tremor movement and warn of potential structural failure in global fault regions prone to earthquake.

The SHMS will indicate the exact locality and extent of any damage via monitoring and analysis of electrical impulses generated by conductive nano-fibres in a flexible textile membrane. Data captured by the fibres linked to an external computer source will assess the feasibility and cost of structural repair.

The prototype textile sensor will be used in new construction in fault regions such as California, Turkey, China and Japan. The work would position the University of Brighton in the highly important field of earthquake research, and lead to significant commercial collaborations.

Find out more about SHMS