• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.373-380
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• 2004

This paper presents the feasibility of an impedance-based damage detection technique using piezoelectric (PZT) transducers for civil infrastructures such as steel bridges. The impedance-based damage detection method is based on monitoring the changes in the electrical impedance. Those changes in the electrical impedance are due to the electro-mechanical coupling property of the piezoelectric material and structure. An effective integrated structural health monitoring system must include a statistical process of damage detection that is automated and real time assessment of damage in the structure. Once measured, damage sensitive features from this impedance change can be statistically quantified for various damage cases. The results of the experimental study on three kinds of structural members show that cracks or loosened bolts/nuts near the PZT sensors may be effectively detected by monitoring the shifts of the resonant frequencies. The root mean square (RMS) deviations of impedance functions between before and after damages were also considered as a damage indicator. The subsequent statistical methods using the impedance signature of the PZT sensors were investigated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.183-202
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• 2014

A new method of multiple damage detection in beam like structures is introduced. The mode shapes of both healthy and damaged structures are used in damage detection process (DDP). Multiple Damage Localization Index Based on Mode Shapes (MDLIBMS) is presented as a criterion in detecting damaged elements. A finite element modeling of structures is used to calculate the mode shapes parameters. The main advantages of the proposed method are its simplicity, flexibility on the number of elements and so the accuracy of the damage(s) position(s), sensitivity to small damage extend, capability in prediction of required number of mode shapes and low sensitivity to noisy data. In fact, because of differential and comparative form of MDLIBMS, using noise polluted data doesn't have major effect on the results. This makes the proposed method a powerful one in damage detection according to measured mode shape data. Because of its flexibility, damage detection process in multi span bridge girders with non-prismatic sections can be done by this method. Numerical simulations used to demonstrate these advantages.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.237-254
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• 2019

This paper presents an improved time series based damage detection approach with experimental verifications for detection, localization, and quantification of damage in shear-type structures under varying mass effects using output-only vibration data. The proposed method can be very effective for automated monitoring of buildings to develop proactive maintenance strategies. In this method, Auto-Regressive Moving Average models with eXogenous inputs (ARMAX) are built to represent the dynamic relationship of different sensor clusters. The damage features are extracted based on the relative difference of the ARMAX model coefficients to identify the existence, location and severity of damage of stiffness and mass separately. The results from a laboratory-scale shear type structure show that different damage scenarios are revealed successfully using the approach. At the end of this paper, the methodology limitations are also discussed, especially when simultaneous occurrence of mass and stiffness damage at multiple locations.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.169-181
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• 2020

Sensor placement is a crucial aspect of bridge health monitoring (BHM) dedicated to accurately estimate and locate structural damages. In addressing this goal, a sensor placement framework based on the deflection influence line (DIL) analysis is here proposed, for the optimal design of damage detection-oriented BHM system. In order to improve damage detection accuracy, we explore the change of global stiffness matrix, damage coefficient matrix and DIL vector caused by structural damage, and thus develop a novel sensor placement framework based on the Fisher information matrix. Our approach seeks to determine the contribution of each sensing node to damage detection, and adopts a distance correction coefficient to eliminate the information redundancy among sensors. The proposed damage detection-oriented optimal sensor placement (OSP) method is verified by two examples: (1) a numerically simulated three-span continuous beam, and (2) the Pinghu bridge which has existing real damage conditions. These two examples verify the performance of the distance corrected damage sensitivity of influence line (DSIL) method in significantly higher contribution to damage detection and lower information redundancy, and demonstrate the proposed OSP framework can be potentially employed in BHM practices.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.327-336
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• 2018

In this study, an efficient damage index is proposed to identify multiple damage cases in structural systems using the concepts of frequency response function (FRF) matrix and strain energy of a structure. The index is defined based on the change of strain energy of an element due to damage. For obtaining the strain energy stored in elements, the columnar coefficients of the FRF matrix is used. The new indicator is named here as frequency response function strain energy based index (FRFSEBI). In order to assess the performance of the proposed index for structural damage detection, some benchmark structures having a number of damage scenarios are considered. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed index even with considering noise can accurately identify the actual location and approximate severity of the damage. In order to demonstrate the high efficiency of the proposed damage index, its performance is also compared with that of the flexibility strain energy based index (FSEBI) provided in the literature.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.7
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• pp.811-833
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• 2010

Vibration control and health monitoring of building structures have been actively investigated in recent years but treated separately according to the primary objective pursued. This paper presents a general approach in the time domain for integrating vibration control and health monitoring of a building structure to accommodate various types of control devices and on-line damage detection. The concept of the time-domain approach for integrated vibration control and health monitoring is first introduced. A parameter identification scheme is then developed to identify structural stiffness parameters and update the structural analytical model. Based on the updated analytical model, vibration control of the building using semi-active friction dampers against earthquake excitation is carried out. By assuming that the building suffers certain damage after extreme event or long service and by using the previously identified original structural parameters, a damage detection scheme is finally proposed and used for damage detection. The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated through detailed numerical examples and extensive parameter studies.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.139-144
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• 2008

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 is developed. To detect damage, objective function that minimize difference with natural frequency and modal strain energy from undamaged and damaged model is used. Secondly, finite element model for beam structure is created. And damage scenario is determined. Lastly, damage detection is performed by proposed method and utility of proposed method is verified.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.459-466
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• 2006

The objective of this study is to improve the accuracy of damage detection using natural frequency and modal strain energy. The following approaches are used to achieve the goal. First, modal strain energy is introduced and newly GA-based damage detection technique using natural frequency and modal strain energy is proposed. Next, to verify efficiency of the proposed technique, damage scenarios for free-free beams are designed and the vibration modal tests as damage cases are conducted. Finally, feasibility of proposed technique is verified in comparison with a GA-based damage detection technique using natural frequency and mode shape.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.501-523
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• 2016

Electromechanical impedance (EMI) based structural health monitoring is performed by measuring the variation in the impedance due to the structural local damage. The impedance signals are acquired from the piezoelectric patches that are bonded on the structural surface. The impedance variation, which is directly related to the mechanical properties of the structure, indicates the presence of local structural damage. Two traditional EMI-based damage detection methods are based on calculating the difference between the measured impedance signals in the frequency domain from the baseline and the current structures. In this paper, a new structural damage detection approach by analyzing the time domain impedance responses is proposed. The measured time domain responses from the piezoelectric transducers will be used for analysis. With the use of the Time Frequency Autoregressive Moving Average (TFARMA) model, a damage index based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is defined to identify the existence of the structural local damage. Experimental studies on a space steel truss bridge model in the laboratory are conducted to verify the proposed approach. Four piezoelectric transducers are attached at different locations and excited by a sweep-frequency signal. The impedance responses at different locations are analyzed with TFARMA model to investigate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed approach. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach is very sensitive and robust in detecting the bolt damage in the gusset plates of steel truss bridges.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.2 no.6
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• pp.481-498
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• 2005

A wavelet based approach is proposed for structural damage detection in beams, plate and delamination of composite plates. Wavelet theory is applied here for crack identification of a beam element with a transverse on edge non-propagating open crack. Finite difference method was used for generating a general displacement equation for the cracked beam in the first example. In the second and third example, damage is detected from the deformed shape of a loaded simply supported plate applying the wavelet theory. Delamination in composite plate is identified using wavelet theory in the fourth example. The main concept used is the breaking down of the dynamic signal of a structural response into a series of local basis function called wavelets, so as to detect the special characteristics of the structure by scaling and transformation property of wavelets. In the light of the results obtained, limitations of the proposed method as well as suggestions for future work are presented. Results show great promise of wavelet approach for damage detection and structural health monitoring.