CAMSS team members M. Schulz, M. Sundaresan and A. Goshal took important role in the establishement of the new journal "Structural Health Monitoring: An International Journal" (SAGE Publications). This new journal will serve as a primary repository and reference source for the crosscuttingscience and new technology of structural health monitoring.

CAMSS members Prof. Mark Schulz (Managing Editor of SHM Journal), Dr. Mannur Sundaresan and Dr. Anindya Goshal (Associate Editors) published more than 40 articles in the area Structural Health Monitoring and Smart Structures. They established close collaboration with other leading scientists working in this new area of research. As a result of this cooperation the new journal has been initiated.

Welcome to Structural Health Monitoring: An International Journal. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is the continuous or regular monitoring of the condition of a structure or system using built-in or autonomous sensory systems, and any resultant intervention to preserve structural integrity. SHM is a broad multi-disciplinary field both in terms of the diverse science and technology involved as well as in its varied applications. The technological developments necessary to enable practical structural health monitoring are originating from scientists and engineers in many fields including physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, and mechanical, aerospace, civil and electrical engineering. SHM is being implemented on diverse systems and structures such as aircraft, spacecraft, ships, helicopters, automobiles, bridges, buildings, civil infrastructure, power generating plants, pipelines, electronic systems, manufacturing and processing facilities, biological systems, and for the protection of the environment, and for defense.

The motivation for this new journal is to better facilitate a widespread dissemination and understanding of these rapidly progressing new SHM technological advances and their applications. The SHM journal will also serve as a primary repository and reference source for the crosscutting science and new technology of structural health monitoring. As a result, we anticipate that this journal will lead to new applications and transfer of SHM technology into other fields, particularly in the broad areas of sensing, smart materials, signal processing, modeling, and integration. The journal will contain basic and applied research papers, review and position papers from government and industry, announcements for conferences, reviews, and other information pertaining to SHM. The scope of the journal will be broad, interdisciplinary, and international.

In the first issues, a number of papers in the journal will discuss recent research progress, new research directions, and strategic research areas that are needed. These include integration and scaling for global coverage using large numbers of sensors, ultra-reliable sensors, damage mitigation, intervention, new materials, biological materials, algorithms, and applications. The journal will also publish expanded papers from conferences and papers that deal with interdisciplinary research and education. The journal is expected to be of significant benefit to the economies of the world, because SHM can increase the life, performance, safety, and reduce maintenance actions for all types and levels of structures, from nanostructure, to microstructure, to infrastructure.
One imperative of the journal is to continuously integrate new technology and ideas into SHM and, conversely, to integrate SHM technology into new applications and other fields. As an example, Bio-Nanotechnology (integrating biological function with nanoscale precision) seems very promising for producing major advances in the field of SHM. Perhaps in this century, the integration of Biomimetics, Nanotechnology, SHM and Smart Structures will deliver vastly improved communication architectures, material systems, sensors, and actuators. The result of this could be superelastic lightweight structures that can self-assemble, monitor their own health and performance, react and adapt to their environment, and self-heal in such a human-like way that new generations of structures and vehicles may become autonomous and possibly nearly unbreakable. The socio-economic benefit of such autonomous and enduring structures would extend across all transportation and civil infrastructure systems, and could allow the human exploration and colonization of space.

There are a number of people who were instrumental in starting this journal and deserve acknowledgment. Daniel J. Inman, Anindya Ghoshal, Mannur J. Sundaresan and Michael Brown gathered support from the SHM community, and helped to start the journal and form the editorial board. David Ross enthusiastically endorsed starting SHM and manages publication of the journal. Emma Tennant is in the key position of production editor and she organizes the issues of SHM. The thirty-five Associate Editors of the journal represent a wide scope of international experts who are recognized for contributing their expertise for the advancement of the field of SHM. In closing, special thanks must be given to the visionary people in the industries, government laboratories, agencies, and universities throughout the world who started the field of SHM and continue to support its growth.