Triboluminescent materials for structural damage monitoring

Triboluminescent materials have been known for at least four centuries. The majority of work to date has been academic in nature - reporting a new tri boluminescent material and/or presenting a spectroscopic study in an effort to explain the mechanism underlying the fracture-induced light emission. R ecently, the advantages of triboluminescent materials as real-time structur al damage sensors have been highlighted. These sensors can be exploited in both commercial and military markets. In addition to covering some of the r ecent advances in the field, this paper aims to provide a timely overview o f those triboluminescent materials which may be suitable as structural dama ge sensors.