• Wind and Structures
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• 제21권6호
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• pp.693-707
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• 2015

The efficiency of wind turbines (WT) is primarily reflected in their ability to generate electricity at any time. Downtimes of WTs due to "conventional" inspections are cost-intensive and undesirable for investors. For this reason, there is a need for structural health monitoring (SHM) systems, to enable service and maintenance on demand and to increase the inspection intervals. In general, monitoring increases the cost effectiveness of WTs. This publication concentrates on the application of two vibration-based SHM algorithms for stability and structural change monitoring of offshore WTs. Only data driven, output-only algorithms based on stochastic subspace identification (SSI) in time domain are considered. The centerpiece of this paper deals with the rough mathematical description of the dynamic behavior of offshore WTs and with the basic presentation of stochastic subspace-based algorithms and their application to these structures. Due to the early stage of the industrial application of SHM on offshore WT on the one side and the required confidentiality to the plant manufacturer and operator on the other side, up to now it is not possible to analyze different isolated structural damages resp. changes in a systematic manner, directly by means of in-situ measurement and to make these "acknowledgements" publicly available. For this reason, the sensitivity of the methods for monitoring purposes are demonstrated through their application on long time measurements from a 1:10 large scale test rig of an offshore WT under different conditions: undamaged, different levels of loosened bolt connections between tower parts, different levels of fouling, scouring and structure inclination. The limitation and further requirements for the approaches and their applicability on real foundations are discussed along the paper.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제21권6호
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• pp.677-691
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• 2015

In this study, the geometrical setup of a turbine blade is tracked. A research-scale rotating turbine blade system is setup with a single 3-axes accelerometer mounted on one of the blades. The turbine system is rotated by a controlled motor. The tilt and rolling angles of the rotating blade under operating conditions are determined from the response measurement of the single accelerometer. Data acquisition is achieved using a prototype wireless sensing system. First, the Rodrigues' rotation formula and an optimization algorithm are used to track the blade rolling angle and pitching angles of the turbine blade system. In addition, the blade flapwise natural frequency is identified by removing the rotation-related response induced by gravity and centrifuge force. To verify the result of calculations, a covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification method (SSI-COV) is applied to the vibration measurements of the blades to determine the system natural frequencies. It is thus proven that by using a single sensor and through a series of coordinate transformations and the Rodrigues' rotation formula, the geometrical setup of the blade can be tracked and the blade flapwise vibration frequency can be determined successfully.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제31권2호
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• pp.171-181
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• 2023

Using the most up-to-date system identification methods in both time and frequency domains, the dynamic monitoring data from the reinforced concrete Egebaekvej Bridge near Holte, Denmark, is examined in this investigation. The bridge was erected in the 1960s and was still standing during test campaign before demolishing. The ARTeMIS Modal was adopted to derive the modal parameters from ambient vibration data. Several Operational Modal Analysis (OMA) approaches were applied, including Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition (EFDD), Curve-fit Frequency Domain Decomposition (CFDD), and Frequency Domain Decomposition (FDD). Afterward, Principal Component (SSI-PC), Unweighted Principal Component (SSI-UPC) Stochastic Subspace Identification methods were utilized. Danish engineering consulting company, COWI with the allowance of the bridge contractor BARSLUND, allow the researcher for this experimental test to demonstrate the impact of OMA applications.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.363-389
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• 2016

Deficient modes that cannot be always identified from different sets of measurement data may exist in the application of operational modal analysis such as the stochastic subspace identification techniques in large-scale civil structures. Based on a recent work using the long-term ambient vibration measurements from an instrumented cable-stayed bridge under different wind excitation conditions, a benchmark problem is launched by taking the same bridge as a test bed to further intensify the exploration of mode identifiability. For systematically assessing this benchmark problem, a recently developed SSI algorithm based on an alternative stabilization diagram and a hierarchical sifting process is extended and applied in this research to investigate several sets of known and blind monitoring data. The evaluation of delicately selected cases clearly distinguishes the effect of traffic excitation on the identifiability of the targeted deficient mode from the effect of wind excitation. An additional upper limit for the vertical acceleration amplitude at deck, mainly induced by the passing traffic, is subsequently suggested to supplement the previously determined lower limit for the wind speed. Careful inspection on the shape vector of the deficient mode under different excitation conditions leads to the postulation that this mode is actually induced by the motion of the central tower. The analysis incorporating the tower measurements solidly verifies this postulation by yielding the prevailing components at the tower locations in the extended mode shape vector. Moreover, it is also confirmed that this mode can be stably identified under all the circumstances with the addition of tower measurements. An important lesson learned from this discovery is that the problem of mode identifiability usually comes from the lack of proper measurements at the right locations.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제10권4_5호
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• pp.393-410
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• 2012

The 610 m high Canton Tower (formerly named Guangzhou New Television Tower) is currently considered as a benchmark problem for structural health monitoring (SHM) of high-rise slender structures. In the benchmark study task I, a set of 24-hour ambient vibration measurement data has been available for the output-only system identification study. In this paper, the vector autoregressive models (ARV) method is adopted in the operational modal analysis (OMA) for this TV tower. The identified natural frequencies, damping ratios and mode shapes are presented and compared with the available results from some other research groups which used different methods, e.g., the data-driven stochastic subspace identification (SSI-DATA) method, the enhanced frequency domain decomposition (EFDD) algorithm, and an improved modal identification method based on NExT-ERA technique. Furthermore, the environmental effects on the estimated modal parameters are also discussed.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제17권6호
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• pp.609-627
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• 2013

The Yingxian wooden tower in China is currently the tallest wooden tower in the world. It was built in 1056 AD and is 65.86 m high. Field measurements of wind speed and wind-induced response of this tower are conducted. The wind characteristics, including the average wind speed, wind direction, turbulence intensity, gust factor, turbulence integral length scale and velocity spectrum are investigated. The power spectral density and the root-mean-square wind-induced acceleration are analyzed. The structural modal parameters of this tower are identified with two different methods, including the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) combined with the Random Decrement Technique (RDT) and Hilbert transform technique, and the stochastic subspace identification (SSI) method. Results show that strong wind is coming predominantly from the West-South of the tower which is in the same direction as the inclination of the structure. The Von Karman spectrum can describe the spectrum of wind speed well. Wind-induced torsional vibration obviously occurs in this tower. The natural frequencies identified by EMD, RDT and Hilbert Transform are close to those identified by SSI method, but there is obvious difference between the identified damping ratios for the first two modes.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.391-411
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• 2016

This study investigates the mode identifiability of a multi-span cable-stayed bridge in terms of a benchmark study using stabilization diagrams of a system model identified using stochastic subspace identification (SSI). Cumulative contribution ratios (CCRs) estimated from singular values of system models under different wind conditions were also considered. Observations revealed that wind speed might influence the mode identifiability of a specific mode of a cable-stayed bridge. Moreover the cumulative contribution ratio showed that the time histories monitored during strong winds, such as those of a typhoon, can be modeled with less system order than under weak winds. The blind data Acc 1 and Acc 2 were categorized as data obtained under a typhoon. Blind data Acc 3 and Acc 4 were categorized as data obtained under wind conditions of critical wind speeds around 7.5 m/s. Finally, blind data Acc 5 and Acc 6 were categorized as data measured under weak wind conditions.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제10권4_5호
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• pp.353-373
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• 2012

The instrumented Canton Tower is a 610 m high-rise structure, which has been considered as a benchmark problem for structural health monitoring (SHM) research. In this paper, an improved automatic modal identification method is presented based on a natural excitation technique in conjunction with the eigensystem realization algorithm (NExT/ERA). In the proposed modal identification method, damping ratio, consistent mode indicator from observability matrices (CMI_O) and modal amplitude coherence (MAC) are used as criteria to distinguish the physically true modes from spurious modes. Enhanced frequency domain decomposition (EFDD), the data-driven stochastic subspace identification method (SSI-DATA) and the proposed method are respectively applied to extract the modal parameters of the Canton Tower under different environmental conditions. Results of modal parameter identification based on output-only measurements are presented and discussed. User-selected parameters used in those methods are suggested and discussed. Furthermore, the effect of environmental conditions on the dynamic characteristics of Canton tower is investigated.

• 한국전산구조공학회논문집
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• 제34권1호
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• pp.35-42
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• 2021

이 논문에서는 공용중인 구조물의 상시 계측 자료를 사용한 온라인 유한요소 모델 업데이트 방법을 제안한다. 일반적인 최적화 방법에 기반한 기존의 방법은 최적해를 찾기까지 반복적으로 고유치 해석을 수행해야 하므로 상시 업데이트에 사용하기에는 효과적이지 못하다. 제안하는 방법은 별도의 오프라인 작업이나 사용자의 개입이 없이 자동화된 과정으로 계측과 동시에 온라인 유한요소모델 업데이트를 수행할 수 있는 새로운 방법이다. 자동화된 Cov-SSI 알고리즘을 통해 구조물의 진동 계측 신호로부터 고유진동수 및 모드 형상을 식별하고, 이를 다시 역 고유치 신경망에 입력하여 최종적으로 업데이트된 유한요소 모델의 파라미터를 추정한다. 풍하중을 받는 20층 전단 빌딩 구조 모형에 대한 수치예제를 통해 제시한 방법이 자동으로 연속적인 유한요소모델 업데이트를 할 수 있었음을 확인하였다. 또한, 계측 도중 구조물의 특성이 변화하는 시나리오에 대한 예제에서 구조물의 변화가 일어나는 시점과 변화 후 변동된 구조 모델 파라미터 값을 성공적으로 추정할 수 있음을 확인하였다.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.523-539
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• 2016

The ambient vibration measurement is an output-data-only dynamic testing where natural excitations are represented, for instance, by winds and typhoons. The modal identification involving output-only measurements requires the use of specific modal identification techniques. This paper presents the application of a reliable method (the Stochastic Subspace Identification - SSI) implemented in a general purpose software. As a criterion toward the robustness of identified modes, a bio-inspired optimization algorithm, with a highly nonlinear objective function, is introduced in order to find the optimal deployment of a reduced number of sensors across a large civil engineering structure for the validation of its modal identification. The Ting Kau Bridge (TKB), one of the longest cable-stayed bridges situated in Hong Kong, is chosen as a case study. The results show that the proposed method catches eigenvalues and eigenvectors even for a reduced number of sensors, without any significant loss of accuracy.