• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• 제18권3호
• /
• pp.321-335
• /
• 2020

The aim of the present contribution is to consider and underline the essential interactions among the historical knowledge, the seismic vulnerability assessment, the investigation experimental tools, the preservation of the architectural quality and the strengthening design in regard to architectural heritage conservation. These topics are argued in relation to Palazzo Murena in Perugia, designed in the eighteenth century by the famous Architect Luigi Vanvitelli, and currently headquarters of the city's University. Based on the surveys and the visual inspections, a preliminary a priori global analysis has been performed by means of the FME method. The obtained results permitted to plan an experimental tests campaign inclusive of structural health monitoring. The new achieved "knowledge" of the building allowed to refine the seismic safety assessment. In particular it was highlighted that the "mezzanine floor" can be a vulnerable element of the building with the collapse of its masonry walls. Preserving the architectural characteristics, a local reinforcement intervention is proposed for the above-mentioned level; this consists of the application of plaster with FRCM, assuring an adequate strength, without burden the masonry structure with additional weight, and therefore a decreasing of the seismic vulnerability. The necessity to consider, in this ongoing research, other local mechanisms is highlighted in the unfolding of the last part of work.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
• /
• 제2권3호
• /
• pp.213-236
• /
• 2015

The paper presents an investigation into the mode conversion and scattering characteristics of guided waves at delaminations in laminated composite beams. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model, which is experimentally verified using data measured by 3D scanning laser vibrometer, is used in the investigation. The study consists of two parts. The first part investigates the excitability of the fundamental anti-symmetric mode ($A_0$) of guided wave in laminated composite beams. It is found that there are some unique phenomena, which do not exist for guided waves in plate structures, make the analysis become more complicated. The phenomena are observed in numerical study using 3D FE simulations. In the second part, several delaminated composite beams are studied numerically to investigate the mode conversion and scattering characteristics of the $A_0$ guided wave at delaminations. Different sizes, locations and through-thickness locations of the delaminations are investigated in detail. The mode conversion and scattering phenomena of guided waves at the delaminations are studied by calculating reflection and transmission coefficients. The results show that the sizes, locations and through-thickness locations of the delaminations have significant effects on the scattering characteristics of guided waves at the delaminations. The results of this research would provide better understanding of guided waves propagation and scattering at the delaminations in the laminated composite beams, and improve the performance of guided wave damage detection methods.

• Computers and Concrete
• /
• 제21권6호
• /
• pp.637-647
• /
• 2018

Numerical approach using finite element method has been used to evaluate the behaviour of reinforced concrete frame structure subjected to fire. The structure is previously designed in accordance with Eurocode standards for the design of structures for earthquake resistance, for the ductility class M. Thermal and structural response are obtained using a commercially available software ANSYS. Temperature-dependent nonlinear thermal and mechanical properties are adopted according to Eurocode standards, with the application of constitutive model for the triaxial behaviour of concrete with a smeared crack approach. Discrete modelling of concrete and reinforcement has enabled monitoring of the behaviour at a global, as well as at a local level, providing information on the level of damage occurring during fire. Critical regions in frame structures are identified and assessed, based on temperatures, displacements, variations of internal forces magnitudes and achieved plastic deformations of main reinforcement bars. Parametric analyses are conducted for different fire scenarios and different types of concrete aggregate to determine their effect on global deformations of frame structures. According to analyses results, the three-dimensional finite element model can be used to evaluate the insulation and mechanical resistance criteria of reinforced concrete frame structures subjected to nominal fire curves.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• 제15권8호
• /
• pp.2718-2731
• /
• 2021

In the structural health monitoring of composite materials, in order to solve the ill-posed problem of impact force reconstruction, regularization techniques are often used to deal with it. Due to the poor convergence of the traditional Tikhonov regularization method, in order to accurately reconstruct the time history of the impact force, this paper improves Tikhonov regularization method and constructs homotopy function with strong convergence. Since the optimal regularization parameters need to be found in the homotopy function, the Newton downhill method is used to find the optimal parameters and the homotopy function can be calculated, which can accurately reconstruct the time history of the impact force. In order to verify the universality of the method in this paper, impact hammers of different materials were used in the experiment in this paper to study and compare the reconstruction effect of impact time history of different impact hammers.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제54권4호
• /
• pp.1221-1229
• /
• 2022

In this work, the guided wave de-bonding area-detecting technique was studied for application to containment liner plates in nuclear power plant areas. To apply this technique, an appropriate Lamb wave mode, symmetric and longitudinal dominance, was verified by the frequency shifting technique. The S0 2.7 MHz mm Lamb wave mode was chosen to realize quantitative experimental results and their visualization. Results of the bulk wave, longitudinal wave mode, and comparison experiments indicate that the wave mode was able to distinguish between the de-bonded and bonded areas. Similar to the bulk wave cases, the bonded region could be distinguished from the de-bonded region using the Lamb wave approach. The Lamb wave technique results showed significant correlation to the de-bonding area. As the de-bonding area increased, the Lamb wave energy attenuation effect decreased, which was a prominent factor in the realization of quantitative tomographic visualization. The feasibility of tomographic visualization was studied via the application of Lamb waves. The reconstruction algorithm for the probabilistic inspection of damage (RAPID) technique was applied to the containment liner plate to verify and visualize the de-bonding condition. The results obtained using the tomography image indicated that the Lamb wave-based RAPID algorithm was capable of delineating debonding areas.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제30권1호
• /
• pp.17-34
• /
• 2022

For steel structures, fatigue cracks are critical damage induced by long-term cycle loading and distortion effects. Vision-based crack detection can be a solution to ensure structural integrity and performance by continuous monitoring and non-destructive assessment. A critical issue is to distinguish cracks from other features in captured images which possibly consist of complex backgrounds such as handwritings and marks, which were made to record crack patterns and lengths during periodic visual inspections. This study presents a parametric study on image-based crack identification for orthotropic steel bridge decks using captured images with complicated backgrounds. Firstly, a framework for vision-based crack segmentation using the atrous convolution-based Deeplapv3+ network (ACDN) is designed. Secondly, features on crack images are labeled to build three databanks by consideration of objects in the backgrounds. Thirdly, evaluation metrics computed from the trained ACDN models are utilized to evaluate the effects of obstacles on crack detection results. Finally, various training parameters, including image sizes, hyper-parameters, and the number of training images, are optimized for the ACDN model of crack detection. The result demonstrated that fatigue cracks could be identified by the trained ACDN models, and the accuracy of the crack-detection result was improved by optimizing the training parameters. It enables the applicability of the vision-based technique for early detecting tiny fatigue cracks in steel structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제28권6호
• /
• pp.727-735
• /
• 2021

Recently, non-destructive health monitoring methods such as magnetic flux leakage (MFL) method, have become popular due to their advantages over destructive methods. Currently, numerical study on this field has been limited to simplified studies by only obtaining MFL instead of induced voltage inside coil sensor. In this study, it was proposed to perform a novel numerical simulation of MFL's coil sensor by considering vital parameters including specimen's motion with constant velocity and saturation status of specimen in time domain. A steel-rod specimen with two stepwise cross-sectional changes (i.e., 21% and 16%) was fabricated using low carbon steel. In order to evaluate the results of numerical simulation, an experimental test was also conducted using a magnetic probe, with same size specimen and test parameters, exclusively. According to comparative results of numerical simulation and experimental test, similar signal amplitude and signal pattern were observed. Thus, proposed numerical simulation method can be used as a reliable source to check efficiency of sensor probe when different size specimens with different defects should be inspected.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제30권2호
• /
• pp.173-181
• /
• 2022

The current paper presents a technique to detect crack in non-uniform cantilever-type pipe beams, that have step changes in the properties of their cross sections, restrained by a translational and rotational spring with a tip mass at the free end. An equation for estimating the natural frequencies for the non-uniform beams is derived using the boundary and continuity conditions, and an equivalent bending stiffness for cracked beam is applied to calculate the natural frequencies of the cracked beam. An experimental study for a step-changed non-uniform cantilever-type pipe beam restrained by bolts with a tip mass is carried out to verify the proposed method. The translational and rotational spring constants are updated using the neural network technique to the results of the experiment for intact case in order to establish a baseline model for the subsequent crack detection. Then, several numerical simulations for the specimen are carried out using the derived equation for estimating the natural frequencies of the cracked beam to construct a set of training patterns of a neural network. The crack locations and sizes are identified using the trained neural network for the 5 damage cases. It is found that the crack locations and sizes are reasonably well estimated from a practical point of view. And it is considered that the usefulness of the proposed method for structural health monitoring of the step-changed non-uniform cantilever-type pipe beam-like structures elastically restrained in the ground and have a tip mass at the free end could be verified.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제30권5호
• /
• pp.501-511
• /
• 2022

Three-dimensional (3D) models have become crucial for improving civil infrastructure analysis, and they can be used for various purposes such as damage detection, risk estimation, resolving potential safety issues, alarm detection, and structural health monitoring. 3D point cloud data is used not only to make visual models but also to analyze the states of structures and to monitor them using semantic data. This study proposes automating the generation of high-quality 3D point cloud data and removing noise using deep learning algorithms. In this study, large-format aerial images of civilian infrastructure, such as cut slopes and dams, which were captured by drones, were used to develop a workflow for automatically generating a 3D point cloud model. Through image cropping, downscaling/upscaling, semantic segmentation, generation of segmentation masks, and implementation of region extraction algorithms, the generation of the point cloud was automated. Compared with the method wherein the point cloud model is generated from raw images, our method could effectively improve the quality of the model, remove noise, and reduce the processing time. The results showed that the size of the 3D point cloud model created using the proposed method was significantly reduced; the number of points was reduced by 20-50%, and distant points were recognized as noise. This method can be applied to the automatic generation of high-quality 3D point cloud models of civil infrastructures using aerial imagery.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제33권1호
• /
• pp.41-53
• /
• 2024

Grouting sleeves are an essential connecting component of prefabricated components, and the quality of grouting has a significant influence on structural integrity and seismic performance. The embedded grouting sleeve (EGS)'s grouting defects are highly undetectable and random, and no effective monitoring method exists. This paper proposes an ultrasonic guided wave method and provides a set of guidelines for selecting the optimal frequency and suitable period for the EGS. The optimal frequency was determined by considering the group velocity, wave structure, and wave attenuation of the selected mode. Guided waves are prone to multi-modality, modal conversion, energy leakage, and dispersion in the EGS, which is a multi-layer structure. Therefore, a time-reversal (TR)-based multi-mode focusing and dispersion automatic compensation technology is introduced to eliminate the multi-mode phase difference in the EGS. First, the influence of defects on guided waves is analyzed according to the TR coefficient. Second, two major types of damage indicators, namely, the time domain and the wavelet packet energy, are constructed according to the influence method. The constructed wavelet packet energy indicator is more sensitive to the changes of defecting than the conventional time-domain similarity indicator. Both numerical and experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible and beneficial for the detection and quantitative estimation of the grouting defects of the EGS.