• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.227-239
• /
• 2020

Despite proven effectiveness and accuracy in laboratories, the existing damage assessment based on guided ultrasonic waves (GUWs) or acoustic emission (AE) confronts challenges when extended to real-world structural health monitoring (SHM) for railway tracks. Central to the concerns are the extremely complex signal appearance due to highly dispersive and multimodal wave features, restriction on transducer installations, and severe contaminations of ambient noise. It remains a critical yet unsolved problem along with recent attempts to implement SHM in bourgeoning high-speed railway (HSR). By leveraging authors' continued endeavours, an SHM framework, based on actively generated diffuse ultrasonic waves (DUWs) and a benchmark-free condition contrast algorithm, has been developed and deployed via an all-in-one SHM system. Miniaturized lead zirconate titanate (PZT) wafers are utilized to generate and acquire DUWs in long-range railway tracks. Fatigue cracks in the tracks show unique contact behaviours under different conditions of external loads and further disturb DUW propagation. By contrast DUW propagation traits, fatigue cracks in railway tracks can be characterised quantitatively and the holistic health status of the tracks can be evaluated in a real-time manner. Compared with GUW- or AE-based methods, the DUW-driven inspection philosophy exhibits immunity to ambient noise and measurement uncertainty, less dependence on baseline signals, use of significantly reduced number of transducers, and high robustness in atrocious engineering conditions. Conformance tests are performed on HSR tracks, in which the evolution of fatigue damage is monitored continuously and quantitatively, demonstrating effectiveness, adaptability, reliability and robustness of DUW-driven SHM towards HSR applications.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.47 no.1
• /
• pp.119-129
• /
• 2013

Nonlinear Static Procedures (NSPs) have been developed as a practical tool to estimate the seismic demand of structures. Several researches have accomplished to minimize errors of NSPs, namely pushover procedures, in the Nonlinear Time History Analysis (NTHA), as the most exact method. The most important issue in a typical pushover procedure is the pattern and technique of loading which are extracted based on structural dynamic fundamentals. In this paper, the coefficients of modal force combination is focused involving a meta-heuristic optimization algorithm to find the optimum load pattern which results in a response with minimum amount of errors in comparison to the NTHA counterpart. Other parameters of the problem are based on the FEMA recommendations for pushover analysis of building structures. The proposed approach is implemented on a high-rise 20 storey concrete moment resisting frame under three earthquake records. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the studied procedure the results are presented beside other well-known pushover methods such as MPA and the FEMA procedures, and the results show the efficiency of the proposed load patterns.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.68 no.1
• /
• pp.39-51
• /
• 2018

In this study, a frequency domain model updating method is presented using power spectral density (PSD) data. It uses the sensitivity of PSD function with respect to the unknown structural parameters through a decomposed form of transfer function. The stiffness parameters are captured with high accuracy through solving the sensitivity equations utilizing the least square approach. Using numerically noise polluted data, the model updating results of a truss model prove robustness of the method against measurement and mass modelling errors. Results prove the capabilities of the method for parameter estimation using highly noise polluted data of low ranges of excitation frequency.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.271-298
• /
• 2012

Researchers have made significant progress in recent years towards realizing effective structural health monitoring (SHM) utilizing wireless smart sensor networks (WSSNs). These efforts have focused on improving the performance and robustness of such networks to achieve high quality data acquisition and distributed, in-network processing. One of the primary challenges still facing the use of smart sensors for long-term monitoring deployments is their limited power resources. Periodically accessing the sensor nodes to change batteries is not feasible or economical in many deployment cases. While energy harvesting techniques show promise for prolonging unattended network life, low power design and operation are still critically important. This research presents the WiSeMote: a new, fully integrated ultra-low power wireless smart sensor node and a flexible base station, both designed for long-term SHM deployments. The power consumption of the sensor nodes and base station has been minimized through careful hardware selection and the implementation of power-aware network software, without sacrificing flexibility and functionality.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.157-172
• /
• 2011

A new method for both local damage(s) identification and input excitation force identification of beam structures is presented using the dynamic response sensitivity-based finite element model updating method. The state-space approach is used to calculate both the structural dynamic responses and the responses sensitivities with respect to structural physical parameters such as elemental flexural rigidity and with respect to the force parameters as well. The sensitivities of displacement and acceleration responses with respect to structural physical parameters are calculated in time domain and compared to those by using Newmark method in the forward analysis. In the inverse analysis, both the input excitation force and the local damage are identified from only several acceleration measurements. Local damages and the input excitation force are identified in a gradient-based model updating method based on dynamic response sensitivity. Both computation simulations and the laboratory work illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.42 no.6
• /
• pp.783-797
• /
• 2012

A new hybrid meta-heuristic optimization algorithm is presented for design of structures. The algorithm is based on the concepts of the charged system search (CSS) and the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms. The CSS is inspired by the Coulomb and Gauss's laws of electrostatics in physics, the governing laws of motion from the Newtonian mechanics, and the PSO is based on the swarm intelligence and utilizes the information of the best fitness historically achieved by the particles (local best) and by the best among all the particles (global best). In the new hybrid algorithm, each agent is affected by local and global best positions stored in the charged memory considering the governing laws of electrical physics. Three different types of structures are optimized as the numerical examples with the new algorithm. Comparison of the results of the hybrid algorithm with those of other meta-heuristic algorithms proves the robustness of the new algorithm.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 1997.04a
• /
• pp.89-96
• /
• 1997

Most civil engineering structures, such as highway bridges, towers, power plants and offshore structures suffer structural damages over their service lives caused by adverse loading such as heavy transportation loads, machine vibrations, earthquakes, wind and wave forces. Especially, if excessive load would be acted on the structure, general or partial stiffness should be degraded suddenly and service lives should be shortened eventually For realistic damage assessment of these civil structures, System Identification method using only structure dynamic response data with unknown input excitation is required and thus becoming more challenging problem. In this paper, an improved Iterative Least Squares method is proposed, which seems to be very efficient and robust method, because only the dynamic response data such as acceleration, velocity and displacement is used without input data, and no information on the modal properties is required. The efficiency and robustness of the proposed method is proved by numerical problems and real single span beam model test.

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

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.41 no.3
• /
• pp.349-363
• /
• 2012

Fuzzy logic based control has recently been proposed for regulating the properties of magnetorheological (MR) dampers in an effort to reduce vibrations of structures subjected to seismic excitations. So far, most studies showing the effectiveness of these algorithms have focused on the use of a single MR damper. Because multiple dampers would be needed in practical applications, this study aims to evaluate the effects of multiple individually tuned fuzzy-controlled MR dampers in reducing responses of a multi-degree-of-freedom structure subjected to seismic motions. Two different fuzzy-control algorithms are considered, a traditional controller where all parameters are kept constant, and a gain-scheduling control strategy. Different damper placement configurations are also considered, as are different numbers of MR dampers. To determine the robustness of the fuzzy controllers developed to changes in ground excitation, the structure selected is subjected to different earthquake records. Responses analyzed include peak and root mean square displacements, accelerations, and interstory drifts. Results obtained with the fuzzy-based control schemes are compared to passive control strategies.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.174-184
• /
• 2018

The efficiency and safety of social-overhead capital (SOC) public infrastructures have become an eminent social concern. In this regard, a continuous structural health monitoring has been widely implemented to oversee the robustness of such public infrastructures for the safety of the public. This paper deals with the analysis of a distributed mobility management (DMM) support for wireless sensor network (WSN) based information transmission system. The partial DMM support separates the data and control plane infrastructures, wherein, the control plane is managed by a particular mobility management network entity, while the data plane is distributed by the mobility anchors. The system will be able to optimize the information transmission for a wireless structural health monitoring of SOC public infrastructures specifically designed for bridges, and thus, guarantees the safety of public commuters.