SUMMARY Careful selection and placement of sensors are the critical issue in the construction and implementation of an effective structural health monitoring system. A hybrid method termed the optimal sensor placement strategy (OSPS) based on multiple optimization methods is proposed in this paper. The initial sensor placement is firstly obtained by the QR factorization. Then, using the minimization of the off‐diagonal elements in the modal assurance criterion matrix as a measure of the utility of a sensor configuration, the quantity of the sensors is determined by the forward and backward sequential sensor placement algorithm together. Finally, the locations of the sensor are determined by the dual‐structure coding‐based generalized genetic algorithm (GGA). Taking the scientific calculation software matlab (MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA) as a platform, an OSPS toolbox, which is working as a black box, is developed based on the command‐line compiling and graphical user interface‐aided graphical interface design. The characteristic and operation method of the toolbox are introduced in detail, and the scheme selection of the OSP is carried out on the world's tallest TV tower (Guangzhou New TV Tower) based on the developed toolbox. The results indicate that the proposed method is effective and the software package has a friendly interface, plenty of functions, good expansibility and is easy to operate, which can be easily applied in practical engineering. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Lattice dynamical, dielectric, and thermodynamic properties of β-Ga2O3 are investigated by first principles. The calculated phonon frequencies for the Raman-active and the infrared-active modes are assigned. The phonon dispersion curves along high symmetry lines in the Brillouin zone and the phonon density of states are also calculated. The electronic and static dielectric tensors are calculated. The calculated static dielectric constants are much larger than the electronic constants, showing the rather strong ionic contributions to static dielectric constants. These calculated results are in a good agreement with available experimental values. The thermodynamic functions are calculated by using the phonon density of states.