• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.3_4
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• pp.399-414
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• 2013

The smart sensor technology has opened new horizons for assessing and monitoring structural health of civil infrastructure. Smart sensor's unique features such as onboard computation, wireless communication, and cost effectiveness can enable a dense network of sensors that is essential for accurate assessment of structural health in large-scale civil structures. While most research efforts to date have been focused on realizing wireless smart sensor networks (WSSN) on bridge structures, relatively less attention is paid to applying this technology to buildings. This paper presents a decentralized damage detection using the WSSN for building structures. An existing flexibility-based damage detection method is extended to be used in the decentralized computing environment offered by the WSSN and implemented on MEMSIC's Imote2 smart sensor platform. Numerical simulation and laboratory experiment are conducted to validate the WSSN for decentralized damage detection of building structures.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.237-252
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• 2015

This paper addresses the issue of reliability and performance in wireless sensor networks (WSN) based structural health monitoring (SHM), particularly with decentralized damage identification techniques. Two decentralized damage identification algorithms, namely, the autoregressive (AR) model based damage index and the Wiener filter method are developed for structural damage detection. The ambient and impact testing have been carried out on the steel beam structure in the laboratory. Seven wireless sensors are installed evenly along the steel beam and seven wired sensor are also installed on the beam to monitor the dynamic responses as comparison. The results showed that wireless measurements performed very much similar to wired measurements in detecting and localizing damages in the steel beam. Therefore, apart from the usual advantages of cost effectiveness, manageability, modularity etc., wireless sensors can be considered a possible substitute for wired sensors in SHM systems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.779-794
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• 2008

Observer-based fault detection and isolation (FDI) filter design method is a model-based method. By carefully choosing the observer gain, the residual outputs can be projected onto different independent subspaces. Each subspace corresponds to the monitored structural element so that the projected residual will be nonzero when the associated structural element is damaged and zero when there is no damage. The key point of detection filter design is how to find an appropriate observer gain. This problem can be interpreted in a geometric framework and is found to be equivalent to the problem of finding a decentralized static output feedback gain. But, it is still a challenging task to find the decentralized controller by either analytical or numerical methods because its solution set is, generally, non-convex. In this paper, the concept of detection filter and iterative LMI technique for decentralized controller design are combined to develop an algorithm to compute the observer gain. It can be used to monitor structural element state: healthy or damaged. The simulation results show that the developed method can successfully identify structural damages.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.43-54
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• 2009

This study introduces a novel approach for locating damage in a structure using wireless sensor system with local level computational capability to alleviate data traffic load on the centralized computation. Smart wireless sensor systems, capable of iterative damage-searching, mimic an optimization process in a decentralized way. The proposed algorithm tries to detect damage in a structure by monitoring abnormal increases in strain measurements from a group of wireless sensors. Initially, this clustering technique provides a reasonably effective sensor placement within a structure. Sensor clustering also assigns a certain number of master sensors in each cluster so that they can constantly monitor the structural health of a structure. By adopting a voting system, a group of wireless sensors iteratively forages for a damage location as they can be activated as needed. Since all of the damage searching process occurs within a small group of wireless sensors, no global control or data traffic to a central system is required. Numerical simulation demonstrates that the newly developed searching algorithm implemented on wireless sensors successfully localizes stiffness damage in a plate through the local level reconfigurable function of smart sensors.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.415-426
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• 2009

This study focuses on the concept of multi-scale wireless sensor networks for damage detection in civil infrastructure systems by first over viewing the general network philosophy and attributes in the areas of data acquisition, data reduction, assessment and decision making. The data acquisition aspect includes a scalable wireless sensor network acquiring acceleration and strain data, triggered using a Restricted Input Network Activation scheme (RINAS) that extends network lifetime and reduces the size of the requisite undamaged reference pool. Major emphasis is given in this study to data reduction and assessment aspects that enable a decentralized approach operating within the hardware and power constraints of wireless sensor networks to avoid issues associated with packet loss, synchronization and latency. After over viewing various models for data reduction, the concept of a data-driven Bivariate Regressive Adaptive INdex (BRAIN) for damage detection is presented. Subsequent examples using experimental and simulated data verify two major hypotheses related to the BRAIN concept: (i) data-driven damage metrics are more robust and reliable than their counterparts and (ii) the use of heterogeneous sensing enhances overall detection capability of such data-driven damage metrics.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.683-692
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• 2019

Traditional damage detection methods for nonlinear structures are often based on simplified models, such as the mass-spring-damper and shear-building models, which are insufficient for predicting the vibration responses of a real structure. Conventional global nonlinear finite element model updating methods are computationally intensive and time consuming. Thus, they cannot be applied to practical structures. A decentralized approach for identifying the nonlinear material parameters is proposed in this study. With this technique, a structure is divided into several small zones on the basis of its structural configuration. The unknown material parameters and measured vibration responses are then divided into several subsets accordingly. The structural parameters of each subset are then updated using the vibration responses of the subset with the Newton-successive-over-relaxation (SOR) method. A reinforced concrete and steel frame structure subjected to earthquake loading is used to verify the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method. The parameters in the material constitutive model, such as compressive strength, initial tangent stiffness and yielding stress, are identified accurately and efficiently compared with the global nonlinear model updating approach.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.711-730
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• 2010

This study presents the design of autonomous smart sensor nodes for damage monitoring of tendons and girders in prestressed concrete (PSC) bridges. To achieve the objective, the following approaches are implemented. Firstly, acceleration-based and impedance-based smart sensor nodes are designed for global and local structural health monitoring (SHM). Secondly, global and local SHM methods which are suitable for damage monitoring of tendons and girders in PSC bridges are selected to alarm damage occurrence, to locate damage and to estimate severity of damage. Thirdly, an autonomous SHM scheme is designed for PSC bridges by implementing the selected SHM methods. Operation logics of the SHM methods are programmed based on the concept of the decentralized sensor network. Finally, the performance of the proposed system is experimentally evaluated for a lab-scaled PSC girder model for which a set of damage scenarios are experimentally monitored by the developed smart sensor nodes.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.91-114
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• 2016

In this paper, recent research trends and activities on structural health monitoring (SHM) of civil infrastructure in Korea are reviewed. Recently, there has been increasing need for adopting smart sensing technologies to SHM, so this review focuses on smart sensing, monitoring, and assessment for civil infrastructure. Firstly, the research activities on smart sensor technology is reviewed including optical fiber sensors, piezoelectric sensors, wireless smart sensors, and vision-based sensing system. Then, a brief overview is given to the recent advances in smart monitoring and assessment techniques such as vibration-based global monitoring techniques, local monitoring with piezoelectric materials, decentralized monitoring techniques for wireless sensors, wireless power supply and energy harvest. Finally, recent joint SHM activities on several test beds in Korea are discussed to share the up-to-date information and to promote the smart sensors and monitoring technologies for applications to civil infrastructure. It includes a Korea-US joint research on test bridges of the Korea Expressway Corporation (KEC), a Korea-US-Japan joint research on Jindo cable-stayed bridge, and a comparative study for cable tension measurement techniques on Hwamyung cable-stayed bridge, and a campaign test for displacement measurement techniques on Sorok suspension bridge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.423-438
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• 2010

Wireless smart sensors enable new approaches to improve structural health monitoring (SHM) practices through the use of distributed data processing. Such an approach is scalable to the large number of sensor nodes required for high-fidelity modal analysis and damage detection. While much of the technology associated with smart sensors has been available for nearly a decade, there have been limited numbers of fulls-cale implementations due to the lack of critical hardware and software elements. This research develops a flexible wireless smart sensor framework for full-scale, autonomous SHM that integrates the necessary software and hardware while addressing key implementation requirements. The Imote2 smart sensor platform is employed, providing the computation and communication resources that support demanding sensor network applications such as SHM of civil infrastructure. A multi-metric Imote2 sensor board with onboard signal processing specifically designed for SHM applications has been designed and validated. The framework software is based on a service-oriented architecture that is modular, reusable and extensible, thus allowing engineers to more readily realize the potential of smart sensor technology. Flexible network management software combines a sleep/wake cycle for enhanced power efficiency with threshold detection for triggering network wide operations such as synchronized sensing or decentralized modal analysis. The framework developed in this research has been validated on a full-scale a cable-stayed bridge in South Korea.