1. A method of optimizing sensor placement for structural health monitoring of a structure, comprising: representing the structure by a finite element (FE) model having a plurality of elements connected at nodes; generating a contribution database that is stored on a non-transitory electronic device readable medium by: generating a plurality of damage scenarios representing structural damage to the structure, using a Monte Carlo simulation algorithm which produces random damage scenarios, each random damage scenario involving structural damage to one or more randomly selected elements of the FE model, and analyzing each damage scenario to determine sensitivity at possible sensor locations; receiving a user's selection of a number of sensors to be applied to the structure; optimizing placement of the number of sensors to produce an optimized sensor location set that maximizes coverage of dynamic integrity for the number of sensors, wherein dynamic integrity is measured as a ratio of detectable damage scenarios to the plurality of damage scenarios, by: determining a candidate sensor location set by an optimization module that utilizes a genetic algorithm executing on an electronic device, computing a performance indicator for the candidate sensor placement solution based on the contribution database, by a sensor placement evaluation module executing on the electronic device or another electronic device, wherein the performance indicator is computed as a ratio of a number of damage scenarios covered by the candidate sensor placement solution to a total number of the plurality of damage scenarios, using, by the optimization module, the performance indicator as a fitness value for the candidate sensor location set to search for a subsequent sensor location set, and repeating the determining, computing and using until the optimized sensor location set is produced; and applying sensors at locations on the structure indicated by the optimized sensor location set.