• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.39-52
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• 2007

This paper describes an experimental study on structural health monitoring of a 1:3-scaled one-story concrete frame subjected to seismic damage and retrofit. The structure is tested on a shaking table by exerting successively enhanced earthquake excitations until severe damage, and then retrofitted using fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP). The modal properties of the tested structure at trifling, moderate, severe damage and strengthening stages are measured by subjecting it to a small-amplitude white-noise excitation after each earthquake attack. Making use of the measured global modal frequencies and a validated finite element model of the tested structure, a neural network method is developed to quantitatively identify the stiffness reduction due to damage and the stiffness enhancement due to strengthening. The identification results are compared with 'true' damage severities that are defined and determined based on visual inspection and local impact testing. It is shown that by the use of FRP retrofit, the stiffness of the severely damaged structure can be recovered to the level as in the trifling damage stage.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.58 no.1
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• pp.163-179
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• 2016

The Cuckoo search (CS) algorithm is a simple and efficient global optimization algorithm and it has been applied to figure out large range of real-world optimization problem. In this paper, a new formula is introduced to the discovering probability process to improve the convergence rate and the Tournament Selection Strategy is adopted to enhance global search ability of the certain algorithm. Then an approach for structural damage identification based on modified Cuckoo search (MCS) is presented. Meanwhile, we take frequency residual error and the modal assurance criterion (MAC) as indexes of damage detection in view of the crack damage, and the MCS algorithm is utilized to identifying the structural damage. A simply supported beam and a 31-bar truss are studied as numerical example to illustrate the correctness and efficiency of the propose method. Besides, a laboratory work is also conducted to further verification. Studies show that, the proposed method can judge the damage location and degree of structures more accurately than its counterpart even under measurement noise, which demonstrates the MCS algorithm has a higher damage diagnosis precision.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.122-128
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• 2009

In this study, damage detection method using harmony search method and frequency response is proposed. In order to verify this method, the following approaches are implemented. Firstly, damage detection method using harmony search was developed. To detect damage, objective functions that minimize difference with natural frequency and modal strain energy from undamaged and damaged model are used. Secondly, efficiency of developed damage detection method was verified by damage detection of beam structure. And results of harmony search and micro genetic algorithm are compared and evaluated. Thirdly, numerical model was implemented for harbor caisson structure and damage scenario was determined. Lastly, damage detection was performed by proposed method and utility of proposed method is verified.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.457-469
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• 2017

This manuscript deals with a novel approach aimed at identifying multiple damaged sites in structural components through finite frequency changes. Natural frequencies, meant as a privileged set of modal data, are adopted along with a numerical model of the system. The adoption of finite changes efficiently allows challenging characteristic problems encountered in damage detection techniques such as unexpected comparison of possible shifted modes and the significance of modal data changes very often affected by experimental/environmental noise. The new procedure extends MDLAC and exploits parallel computing on modern multicore processors. Smart filters, aimed at reducing the potential damaged sites, are implemented in order to reduce the computational effort. Several use cases are presented in order to illustrate the potentiality of the new damage detection procedure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.239-256
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• 2015

An adaptive-scale damage detection strategy based on a wavelet finite element model (WFEM) for thin plate structures is established in this study. Equations of motion and corresponding lifting schemes for thin plate structures are derived with the tensor products of cubic Hermite multi-wavelets as the elemental interpolation functions. Sub-element damages are localized by using of the change ratio of modal strain energy. Subsequently, such damages are adaptively quantified by a damage quantification equation deduced from differential equations of plate structure motion. WFEM scales vary spatially and change dynamically according to actual needs. Numerical examples clearly demonstrate that the proposed strategy can progressively locate and quantify plate damages. The strategy can operate efficiently in terms of the degrees-of-freedom in WFEM and sensors in the vibration test.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.120-127
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• 2020

Evaluation of fatigue strength considering the springing effect of very large container ships is crucial in the design stage. In this study, we established a fatigue strength evaluation method considering a linear springing component in the frequency domain. Based on a three-dimensional global model, a fluid-structure interaction analysis was performed and the modal superposition method was applied to determine the hot spot stress at the hatch corner of very large container ships. Fatigue damage was directly estimated using the stress transfer function with a linear springing response. Furthermore, we proposed a new methodology to apply the springing effect to fatigue damage using hull girder loads. Subsequently, we estimated the fatigue damage contribution due to linear springing components along the ship length. Finally, we discussed the practical application of the proposed methods.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.729-747
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• 2016

This study aims to present a novel optimization algorithm known as gravitational search algorithm (GSA) for structural damage detection. An objective function for damage detection is established based on structural vibration data in frequency domain, i.e., natural frequencies and mode shapes. The feasibility and efficiency of the GSA are testified on three different structures, i.e., a beam, a truss and a plate. Results show that the proposed strategy is efficient for determining the locations and the extents of structural damages using the first several modal data of the structure. Multiple damages cases in different types of structures are studied and good identification results can be obtained. The effect of measurement noise on the identification results is investigated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1223-1239
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• 2015

A method for structural damage identification based on Chaotic Artificial Bee Colony (CABC) algorithm is presented. ABC is a heuristic algorithm with simple structure, ease of implementation, good robustness but with slow convergence rate. To overcome the shortcoming, the tournament selection mechanism is chosen instead of the roulette mechanism and chaotic search mechanism is also introduced. Residuals of natural frequencies and modal assurance criteria (MAC) are used to establish the objective function, ABC and CABC are utilized to solve the optimization problem. Two numerical examples are studied to investigate the efficiency and correctness of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the CABC algorithm can identify the local damage better compared with ABC and other evolutionary algorithms, even with noise corruption.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.207-230
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• 2012

Full-scale shake table seismic experiments and low-amplitude vibration tests on a masonry building are carried out to assess its seismic performance as well as study the effectiveness of a new multifunctional textile material for retrofitting masonry structures against earthquakes. The un-reinforced and the retrofitted with glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) strips masonry building was subjected to a series of earthquake excitations of increasing magnitude in order to progressively induce various small, moderate and severe levels of damage to the masonry walls. The performance of the original and retrofitted building states is evaluated. Changes in the dynamic characteristics (lowest four modal frequencies and damping ratios) of the building are used to assess and quantify the damage states of the masonry walls. For this, the dynamic modal characteristics of the structure states after each earthquake event were estimated by performing low-amplitude impulse hammer and sine-sweep forced vibration tests. Comparisons between the modal results calculated using traditional accelerometers and those using Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors embedded in the reinforcing textile were carried on to investigate the reliability and accuracy of FBG sensors in tracking the dynamic behaviour of the building. The retrofitting actions restored the stiffness characteristics of the reinforced masonry structure to the levels of the original undamaged un-reinforced structure. The results show that despite a similar dynamic behavior identified, corresponding to reduction of the modal frequencies, the un-reinforced masonry building was severely damaged, while the reinforced masonry building was able to withstand, without visual damage, the induced strong seismic excitations. The applied GFRP reinforcement architecture for one storey buildings was experimentally proven reliable for the most severe earthquake accelerations. It was easily placed in a short time and it is a cost effective solution (covering only 20% of the external wall surfaces) when compared to the cost for full wall coverage by GFRPs.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.119-126
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• 1992

Most civil engineering structures such as bridges, power plants, and offshore platforms are apt to suffer structural damages over their service lives caused by adverse loadings, such as earthquakes, wind and wave forces. Accumulation of structural damages over a long period of time might cause catastrophic structural failure. Therefore, a methodology for monitoring the structural integrity is essential for assuring the safety of the existing structures. A method for the damage assessment of structures by the second order inverse modal perturbation technique is presented in this paper. Perturbation equation consists of a matrix equation involving matrices of structural changes(stiffness and mass matrix changes) and matrices of modal property changes(natural frequency and mode shape changes). The damages of a structure are represented as changes in the stiffness matrix. In this study, a second order perturbation equation is formulated for the damage assessment of structures, and solved by an iterative procedure. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been investigated through a series of example analysis. The estimated results for the structural damage indicated that the present method yields resonable estimates for the structural changes.