• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.133-154
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• 2023

Obscured structural members are mostly under-evaluated during condition assessment due to lack of visual inspection capability. Insufficient information about the integrity of these structural members poses a significant risk for public safety. Time domain reflectometry (TDR) is a novel approach in structural health monitoring (SHM). Ordinary coaxial cables "as is" without a major modification are not suitable for SHM with TDR. The objective of this study is to propose a practical and cost-effective modification approach to commercially available coaxial cables in order to use them as a "cable sensor" for damage detection with the TDR equipment for obscured structural members. The experimental validation and assessment of the proposed modification approach was achieved by conducting 3-point bending tests of the model piles as a representative obscured structural member. It can be noted that the RG59/U-6 and RG6/U-4 cable sensors expose higher strain sensitivity in comparison with non-modified "as is" versions of the cables used. As a result, the cable sensors have the capability of sensing both the presence and the location of a structural damage with a maximum aberration of 3 cm. Furthermore, the crack development can be monitored by the RG59/U-6 cable sensor with a simple calibration.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.849-868
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• 2014

An indirect approach is explored for structural health bridge monitoring allowing for wide, yet cost-effective, bridge stock coverage. The detection capability of the approach is tested in a laboratory setting for three different reversible proxy types of damage scenarios: changes in the support conditions (rotational restraint), additional damping, and an added mass at the midspan. A set of frequency features is used in conjunction with a support vector machine classifier on data measured from a passing vehicle at the wheel and suspension levels, and directly from the bridge structure for comparison. For each type of damage, four levels of severity were explored. The results show that for each damage type, the classification accuracy based on data measured from the passing vehicle is, on average, as good as or better than the classification accuracy based on data measured from the bridge. Classification accuracy showed a steady trend for low (1-1.75 m/s) and high vehicle speeds (2-2.75 m/s), with a decrease of about 7% for the latter. These results show promise towards a highly mobile structural health bridge monitoring system for wide and cost-effective bridge stock coverage.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.167-179
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• 2022

This article develops a long-term condition assessment method for stay cables in cable stayed bridges using the monitored cable tension forces under operational condition. Based on the concept of influence surface, the matched cable tension ratio of two cables located at the same side (either in the upstream side or downstream side) is theoretically proven to be related to the condition of stay cables and independent of the positions of vehicles on the bridge. A sensor grouping scheme is designed to ensure that reliable damage detection result can be obtained even when sensor fault occurs in the neighbor of the damaged cable. Cable forces measured from an in-service cable-stayed bridge in China are used to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method. Damage detection results show that the proposed approach is sensitive to the rupture of wire damage in a specific cable and is robust to environmental effects, measurement noise, sensor fault and different traffic patterns. Using the damage sensitive feature in the proposed approach, the metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall and F1 score, which are used to evaluate the performance of damage detection, are 97.97%, 95.08%, 100% and 97.48%, respectively. These results indicate that the proposed approach can reliably detect the damage in stay cables. In addition, the proposed approach is efficient and promising with applications to the field monitoring of cables in cable-stayed bridges.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.5A
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• pp.421-431
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• 2009

This paper is the study on the verification of structural health monitoring (SHM) algorithm based on the ultrasonic guided wave. An active inspection system using Lamb wave (LW) for SHM was considered. The basic study about the application of this algorithm was performed for detecting the circular notch defect in steel plate. LW testing technique, pitch-catch method, was used for interpretation of circular notch defect with depth of 50% of plate thickness and 7 mm width. Damage characterization takes place by comparing $S_0$ mode sensor signals collected before and after the damage event. By subtracting the signals of both conditions from each other, a scatter signal is produced which can be used for damage localization. The continuous Gabor wavelet transform is used to attain the time between the arrivals of the scatter and sensor signals. A new practical damage monitoring algorithm, based on damage monitoring polygon and pitch-catch method, has been proposed and verified with good accuracy. The possible damage location can be estimated by the average on calculated location points and the damage extent by the standard deviation.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.125-147
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• 2020

Damage detection of structures is one of the most important topics in structural health monitoring. In practice, the response is not available at all structural degrees of freedom, and due to the installation of sensors at some degrees of freedom, responses exist only in limited number of degrees of freedom. This paper is investigated the damage detection of structures by applying two approaches, AllDOF and Dynamic Condensation Method (DCM), based on the Modified Modal Strain Energy Method (MMSEBI). In the AllDOF method, mode shapes in all degrees of freedom is available, but in the DCM the mode shapes only in some degrees of freedom are available. Therefore by methods like the DCM, mode shapes are obtained in slave degrees of freedom. So, in the first step, the responses at slave degrees of freedom extracted using the responses at master degrees of freedom. Then, using the reconstructed mode shape and obtaining the modified modal strain energy, the damages are detected. Two standard examples are used in different damage cases to evaluate the accuracy of the mentioned method. The results showed the capability of the DCM is acceptable for low mode shapes to detect the damage in structures. By increasing the number of modes, the AllDOF method identifies the locations of the damage more accurately.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-32
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• 2016

This paper describes the backgrounds, motivations and recent history of structural health monitoring (SHM) developments to various types of engineering structures. Extensive applications of SHM technologies in bridges, high-rise buildings, sport avenues, offshore platforms, underground structures, dams, etc. in mainland China are summarily categorized and listed in tables. Sensors used in implementations, their deployment, damage identification strategies if applicable, preliminary monitoring achievements and experience are presented in the lists. Finally, existing problems and promising research efforts in civil SHM are discussed, highlighting challenges and future trends.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.737-744
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• 2021

In this study, structural health monitoring (SHM) methods of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs) were investigated using electrical resistance. The developed sensing technique monitored electrical resistance in accordance with the impact damage of a CFRP. The changes in electrical resistances with multiple electrode sets enabled SHM without extra sensors so that this technique can be called self-sensing. Moreover, this study proposed electrodes only at peripheral side of a structure to minimize the number of electrodes compared to those in an array which has square number of sensors as the sensing area increases. For the intensive investigation, electromechanical sensitivity in terms of electrode distance was analyzed and optimized under drop weight impact testing. Then, SHM methods with electrodes in an array and electrodes in peripheral edges were comparatively investigated. The developed methods successfully localized impact damages into 2D coordinates. Furthermore, damage severity can be shown with a damage map by calculating electrical resistance change ratio. Therefore, structural health self-sensing system using electrical resistance was successfully developed with the minimum number of electrodes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.870-874
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• 2004

This work presents a study on development of a practical and quantitative technique for assessment of the structural health condition by Piezoelectric impedance-based technique associated with longitudinal wave propagation method. The bolt fastening condition is adjusted by torque wrench. In order to estimate the damage condition numerically, three damage indices, impedance peak frequency shift ${\Delta}F$, peak amplitude ratio $\delta$ and quality factor ratio $\gamma$, are proposed in this paper. Furthermore, an assessment method is described for estimation of the damage by using these three damage indices.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.321-333
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• 2023

Structural health monitoring is a technology or research field that extends the service life of structures and contributes to the prevention of disaster accidents by continuously evaluating the safety, stability, and serviceability of structures as well as allowing timely and proper maintenance. However, the contact-type sensors used for it require considerable time, cost, and labor for installation and maintenance. As an alternative, computer vision has attracted attention recently. Computer vision has the potential to make quality, deformation, and damage monitoring for structures contactless and automated. In this study, research cases in which computer vision was utilized for structural health monitoring are introduced, and its effects and limitations are summarized. Therefore, the applicability and future research directions of computer vision-based structural health monitoring are discussed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.275-293
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• 2006

For health monitoring purpose usually the structure is instrumented with a large scale and multichannel measurement system. In case of highway bridges, operating vehicle could be utilized to reduce the number of measuring devices. First this paper presents a static damage detection algorithm of using operating vehicle load. The technique has been validated by finite element simulation and simple laboratory test. Next the paper presents an approach of using this technique to field application. Here operating vehicle load data has been used by instrumenting the bridge at single location. This approach gives an upper hand to other sophisticated global damage detection methods since it has the potential of reducing the measuring points and devices. It also avoids the application of artificial loading and interruption of any traffic flow.