• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.787-809
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• 2009

Recent interest in the use of wireless sensor networks for structural health monitoring (SHM) is mainly due to their low implementation costs and potential to measure the responses of a structure at unprecedented spatial resolution. Approaches capable of detecting damage using distributed processing must be developed in parallel with this technology to significantly reduce the power consumption and communication bandwidth requirements of the sensor platforms. In this investigation, a damage detection system based on a distributed processing approach is proposed and experimentally validated using a wireless sensor network deployed on two laboratory structures. In this distributed approach, on-board processing capabilities of the wireless sensor are exploited to significantly reduce the communication load and power consumption. The Damage Location Assurance Criterion (DLAC) is used for localizing damage. Processing of the raw data is conducted at the sensor level, and a reduced data set is transmitted to the base station for decision-making. The results indicate that this distributed implementation can be used to successfully detect and localize regions of damage in a structure. To further support the experimental results obtained, the capabilities of the proposed system were tested through a series of numerical simulations with an expanded set of damage scenarios.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.689-709
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• 2010

In this paper, a low cost, low power but multifunctional wireless sensor node is presented for the impedance-based SHM using piezoelectric sensors. Firstly, a miniaturized impedance measuring chip device is utilized for low cost and low power structural excitation/sensing. Then, structural damage detection/sensor self-diagnosis algorithms are embedded on the on-board microcontroller. This sensor node uses the power harvested from the solar energy to measure and analyze the impedance data. Simultaneously it monitors temperature on the structure near the piezoelectric sensor and battery power consumption. The wireless sensor node is based on the TinyOS platform for operation, and users can take MATLAB$^{(R)}$ interface for the control of the sensor node through serial communication. In order to validate the performance of this multifunctional wireless impedance sensor node, a series of experimental studies have been carried out for detecting loose bolts and crack damages on lab-scale steel structural members as well as on real steel bridge and building structures. It has been found that the proposed sensor nodes can be effectively used for local wireless health monitoring of structural components and for constructing a low-cost and multifunctional SHM system as "place and forget" wireless sensors.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.173-191
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• 2009

Civil infrastructures are always subjected to various types of hazard and deterioration. These conditions require systematic efforts to assess the exposure and vulnerability of infrastructure, as well as producing strategic countermeasures to reduce the risks. This paper describes the needs for and concept of advanced sensor technologies for risk assessment of civil infrastructure in Japan. Backgrounds of the infrastructure problems such as natural disasters, difficult environment, limited resource for maintenance, and increasing requirement for safety are discussed. The paper presents a concept of risk assessment, which is defined as a combination of hazard and structural vulnerability assessment. An overview of current practices and research activities toward implementing the concept is presented. This includes implementation of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems for environment and natural disaster prevention, improvement of stock management, and prevention of structural failure.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.135-147
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• 2016

This paper describes a smart structural system, which uses smart materials for real-time monitoring and active control of bolted-joints in steel structures. The goal of this research is to reduce the possibility of failure and the cost of maintenance of steel structures such as bridges, electricity pylons, steel lattice towers and so on. The concept of the smart structural system combines impedance based health monitoring techniques with a shape memory alloy (SMA) washer to restore the tension of the loosened bolt. The impedance-based structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques were used to detect loosened bolts in bolted-joints. By comparing electrical impedance signatures measured from a potentially damage structure with baseline data obtained from the pristine structure, the bolt loosening damage could be detected. An outlier analysis, using generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution, providing optimal decision boundaries, has been carried out for more systematic damage detection. Once the loosening damage was detected in the bolted joint, the external heater, which was bonded to the SMA washer, actuated the washer. Then, the heated SMA washer expanded axially and adjusted the bolt tension to restore the lost torque. Additionally, temperature variation due to the heater was compensated by applying the effective frequency shift (EFS) algorithm to improve the performance of the diagnostic results. An experimental study was conducted by integrating the piezoelectric material based structural health monitoring and the SMA-based active control function on a bolted joint, after which the performance of the smart 'self-monitoring and self-healing bolted joint system' was demonstrated.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2024

The new metro crossing the existing metro will cause the settlement or floating of the existing structures, which will have safety problems for the operation of the existing metro and the construction of the new metro. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor and predict the settlement of the existing metro caused by the construction of the new metro in real time. Considering the complexity and uncertainty of metro settlement, a Gaussian Prior Bayesian Emulator (GPBE) probability prediction model based on Bayesian optimization (BO) is proposed, that is, BO-GPBE. Firstly, the settlement monitoring data are analyzed to get the influence of the new metro on the settlement of the existing metro. Then, five different acquisition functions, that is, expected improvement (EI), expected improvement per second (EIPS), expected improvement per second plus (EIPSP), lower confidence bound (LCB), probability of improvement (PI) are selected to construct BO model, and then BO-GPBE model is established. Finally, three years settlement monitoring data were collected by structural health monitoring (SHM) system installed on Nanjing Metro Line 10 are employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of BO-GPBE for forecasting the settlement.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.93-103
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• 2024

Despite the rapid development of sensors, structural health monitoring (SHM) still faces challenges in monitoring due to the degradation of devices and harsh environmental loads. These challenges can lead to measurement errors, missing data, or outliers, which can affect the accuracy and reliability of SHM systems. To address this problem, this study proposes a classification method that detects anomaly patterns in sensor data. The proposed classification method involves several steps. First, data scaling is conducted to adjust the scale of the raw data, which may have different magnitudes and ranges. This step ensures that the data is on the same scale, facilitating the comparison of data across different sensors. Next, informative features in the time and frequency domains are extracted and used as input for a deep neural network model. The model can effectively detect the most probable anomaly pattern, allowing for the timely identification of potential issues. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, it was applied to actual data obtained from a long-span cable-stayed bridge in China. The results of the study have successfully verified the proposed method's applicability to practical SHM systems for civil infrastructures. The method has the potential to significantly enhance the safety and reliability of civil infrastructures by detecting potential issues and anomalies at an early stage.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.225-230
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• 2016

Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are currently the most prevalent sensors because of their unique advantages such as ease of multiplexing and capability of performing absolute measurements. They are applied to various structures for structural health monitoring (SHM). The signal characteristics of FBG sensors under thermal loading should be investigated to enhance the reliability of these sensors, because they are exposed to certain cyclic thermal loads due to temperature changes resulting from change of seasons, when they are applied to structures for SHM. In this study, tests on specimens are conducted in a thermal chamber with temperature changes from -$20^{\circ}C$ to $60^{\circ}C$ for 300 cycles. For the specimens, two types of base materials and adhesives that are normally used in the manufacture of packaged FBG sensors are selected. From the test results, it is confirmed that the FBG sensors undergo some degree of compressive strain under cyclic thermal load; this can lead to measurement errors. Hence, a pre-calibration is necessary before applying these sensors to structures for long-term SHM.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.546-548
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• 2010

This paper proposes a new baseline-free TR-based SHM method in which the time-reversal (TR) property of the guided Lamb waves is utilized. The new TR-based SHM method has two distinct features when compared with the other existing SHM techniques: (1) The measurement- based backward TR process is replaced by the computation-based process (2) In place of the comparison method most commonly used for SHM, the TOF information of the damage signal extracted from the reconstructed signal is utilized for the damage diagnosis. For the damage diagnosis, the imaging method is adopted to efficiently detect damage by representing the damage as an image. The proposed TR-based SHM technique is then validated through the damage diagnosis experiment for an aluminum plate with a damage at different locations.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.92-98
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• 2015

Recently, buildings tend to be large size, complex shape and functional. As the size of buildings is becoming massive, the need for structural health monitoring (SHM) technique is increasing. Various SHM techniques have been studied for buildings which have different dynamic characteristics and influenced by various external loads. "Abnormal behavior point" is a moment when the structure starts vibrating abnormally and this can be detected by comparing between before and after abnormal behavior point. In other words, anomalous behavior is a sign of damage on structures and estimating the abnormal behavior point can be directly related to the safety of structure. Abnormal behavior causes damage on structures and this leads to enormous economic damage as well as damage for humans. This study proposes an estimating technique to find abnormal behavior point using Hilber-Huang Transform which is a time-frequency signal analysis technique and the proposed algorithm has been examined through laboratory tests with a bridge model using a shaking table.