FRF-based structural damage detection of controlled buildings with podium structures: Experimental investigation

How to use control devices to enhance system identification and damage detection in relation to a structure that requires both vibration control and structural health monitoring is an interesting yet practical topic. In this study, the possibility of using the added stiffness provided by control devices and frequency response functions (FRFs) to detect damage in a building complex was explored experimentally. Scale models of a 12-storey main building and a 3-storey podium structure were built to represent a building complex. Given that the connection between the main building and the podium structure is most susceptible to damage, damage to the building complex was experimentally simulated by changing the connection stiffness. To simulate the added stiffness provided by a semi-active friction damper, a steel circular ring was designed and used to add the related stiffness to the building complex. By varying the connection stiffness using an eccentric wheel excitation system and by adding or not adding the circular ring, eight cases were investigated and eight sets of FRFs were measured. The experimental results were used to detect damage (changes in connection stiffness) using a recently proposed FRF-based damage detection method. The experimental results showed that the FRF-based damage detection method could satisfactorily locate and quantify damage.     

Large amplitude vibrations and damage detection of rectangular plates

In this work, geometrically nonlinear vibrations of fully clamped rectangular plates are used to study the sensitivity of some nonlinear vibration response parameters to the presence of damage. The geometrically nonlinear version of the Mindlin plate theory is used to model the plate behaviour. Damage is represented as a stiffness reduction in a small area of the plate. The plate is subjected to harmonic loading with a frequency of excitation close to the first natural frequency leading to large amplitude vibrations. The plate vibration response is obtained by a pseudo-load mode superposition method. The main results are focussed on establishing the influence of damage on the vibration response of the plate and the change in the time-history diagrams and the Poincaré maps caused by the damage. Finally, a criterion and a damage index for detecting the presence and the location of the damage is proposed. The criterion is based on analysing the points in the Poincaré sections of the damaged and healthy plate. Numerical results for large amplitude vibrations of damaged and healthy rectangular and square plates are presented and the proposed damage index for the considered cases is calculated. The criterion demonstrates quite good abilities to detect and localize damage.     

Statistical damage identification of structures with frequency changes

Model updating methods based on structural vibration data have being rapidly developed and applied to detect structural damage in civil engineering. But uncertainties existing in the structural model and measured vibration data might lead to unreliable damage detection. In this paper a statistical damage identification algorithm based on frequency changes is developed to account for the effects of random noise in both the vibration data and finite element model. The structural stiffness parameters in the intact state and damaged state are, respectively, derived with a two-stage model updating process. The statistics of the parameters are estimated by the perturbation method and verified by Monte Carlo technique. The probability of damage existence is then estimated based on the probability density functions of the parameters in the two states. A higher probability statistically implies a more likelihood of damage occurrence. The presented technique is applied to detect damages in a numerical cantilever beam and a laboratory tested steel cantilever plate. The effects of using different number of modal frequencies, noise level and damage level on damage identification results are also discussed.     

The interpolation damage detection method for frames under seismic excitation

In this paper a new procedure, addressed as Interpolation Damage Detecting Method (IDDM), is investigated as a possible mean for early detection and location of light damage in a structure struck by an earthquake. Damage is defined in terms of the accuracy of a spline function in interpolating the operational mode shapes (ODS) of the structure. At a certain location a decrease (statistically meaningful) of accuracy, with respect to a reference configuration, points out a localized variation of the operational shapes thus revealing the existence of damage. In this paper, the proposed method is applied to a numerical model of a multistory frame, simulating a damaged condition through a reduction of the story stiffness. Several damage scenarios have been considered and the results indicate the effectiveness of the method to assess and localize damage for the case of concentrated damage and for low to medium levels of noise in the recorded signals. The main advantage of the proposed algorithm is that it does not require a numerical model of the structure as well as an intense data post-processing or user interaction. The ODS are calculated from Frequency Response Functions hence responses recorded on the structure can be directly used without the need of modal identification. Furthermore, the local character of the feature chosen to detect damage makes the IDDM less sensitive to noise and to environmental changes with respect to other damage detection methods. For these reasons the IDDM appears as a valid option for automated post-earthquake damage assessment, able to provide after an earthquake, reliable information about the location of damage.     

A time-domain approach for damage detection in beam structures using vibration data with a moving oscillator as an excitation source

The problem of detecting local/distributed change of stiffness in bridge structures using ambient vibration data is considered. The vibration induced by a vehicle moving on the bridge is taken to be the excitation source. A validated finite element model for the bridge structure in its undamaged state is assumed to be available. Alterations to be made to this initial model, to reflect the changes in bridge behaviour due to occurrence of damage, are determined using a time-domain approach. The study takes into account complicating features arising out of dynamic interactions between vehicle and the bridge, bridge deck unevenness, spatial incompleteness of measured data and presence of measurement noise. The inclusion of vehicle inertia, stiffness and damping characteristics into the analysis makes the system time variant, which, in turn, necessitates treatment of the damage detection problem in time domain. The efficacy of the procedures developed is demonstrated by considering detection of localized/distributed damages in a beam-moving oscillator model using synthetically generated vibration data.     

Structural damage detection of controlled building structures using frequency response functions

If a building structure requires both a vibration control system and a health monitoring system, the integration of the two systems will be cost-effective and beneficial. One of the key problems of this integrated system is how to use control devices to enhance system identification and damage detection. This paper presents a new method for system identification and damage detection of controlled building structures equipped with semi-active friction dampers through model updating based on frequency response functions. The two states of the building are first created by adding a known stiffness using semi-active friction dampers. A scheme based on the frequency response functions of the two states of the building is then presented to identify stiffness parameters of structural members in consideration of structural connectivity and transformation information. By applying the proposed model updating scheme to the damaged building, a damage detection scheme is proposed based on the identified stiffness parameters of structural members of both the original and damaged buildings. The feasibility of the proposed schemes is finally demonstrated through a detailed numerical investigation in terms of an example building, in which the effects of measurement noise and excitation conditions are discussed. The numerical results clearly show that the proposed method can locate and quantify damage satisfactorily even though measurement noise is taken into consideration.     

A local damage detection approach based on restoring force method

Chain-like systems have been studied by many researchers for their simple structure and wide range of application. Previously, the damage in a chain-like system was detected by the reduction of the mass-normalized stiffness coefficient for certain elements as reported by Nayeri et al. (2008 [16]). However, some shortcomings exist in that approach and for overcoming them; an improved approach is derived and presented in this paper. In our improved approach, the mass normalized stiffness coefficients under two states (baseline state and potentially damaged state) are first estimated by a least square method, then these mass-stiffness coupled coefficients are decoupled to derive stiffness and mass relative change ratios for individual elements. These ratios are assembled in a vector, which is defined as damage indication vector (DIV). Each component in DIV is normalized individually to one to get multiple solutions. These solutions are averaged for estimating relative system changes, while abnormal solutions are discarded. The work of judging a solution as normal or abnormal is done by a cluster analysis algorithm. The most intriguing merit of this improved approach is that the relative stiffness and mass changes, which are coupled in the previous approach, can be separately identified. By this approach, the damage (single or multiple) extent and location can be correctly detected under operational conditions, meanwhile the proposed damage index has a clear physical meaning and is directly related to the stiffness reduction of corresponding structural elements. For illustrating the effectiveness and robustness of the improved approach, numerical simulation of a four floor building was carried out and experimental data from a structure tested at the Los Alamos National Laboratory was employed. Identified structural changes with both simulation and experimental data properly indicated the location and extent of actual structural damage, which validated the proposed approach.     

Stochastic damage detection method for building structures with parametric uncertainties

Uncertainties, such as modeling errors and measurement errors, are inevitably involved in damage detection of a building structure. Most deterministic damage detection methods, however, do not consider uncertainties, thus limiting their practical application. A new stochastic damage detection method is therefore proposed in this paper for damage detection of building structures with parametric uncertainties. The proposed method contains two basic steps. The first step is to determine the probability density functions (PDFs) of the structural stiffness parameters before and after damage occurrence by integrating the statistical moment-based damage detection method with the probability density evolution method. In the second step, based on a special probability function calculated using the obtained PDFs, new damage indices are proposed and both damage locations and damage severities are identified. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are numerically demonstrated through a shear building structure with three damage scenarios. The first modal damping ratio of the building structure is regarded as a random parameter with a lognormal distribution. Numerical results show that both damage locations and damage severities can be identified satisfactorily. One of the advantages of the proposed method lies in that it can deal with uncertainty parameters of non-normal distributions.     

Acoustic-based damage detection method

Most of the structural health monitoring (SHM) methods is either based on vibration-based and contact acoustic emission (AE) techniques. Both vibration-based and acoustic emission techniques require attaching transducers to structure. In many applications, such as those involving hot structural materials for thermal protection purposes or in rotating machines, non-contact measurements would be preferred because the operating environment is prohibitive leading to potential damage in contact sensors or their attachments. In this paper, a new non-contact, acoustic-based damage detection method is proposed and tested with an objective that the proposed method is able to detect the location and extend of damage accurately. The proposed acoustic-based damage detection method is a direct method. In this proposed method, changes in vibro-acoustics flexibility matrices of the damage and health structure are used to predict the location and extend of damage in the structure. A case study involving actual measured date for the case of a fixed–fixed plate structure is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results have shown that the proposed acoustic-based damage detection method can be used to detect the location and extend of the damage accurately.     

Structural damage evaluation using genetic algorithm

The detection and identification of structural damage is important in monitoring of structural systems during their lifetime. Many researchers have proposed a variety of damage evaluation methods based on structural monitoring. The stiffness matrix is used in some conventional damage detection methods; however, it leads to inevitable error due to the lack of data provided by structural monitoring. To overcome this problem, this study introduces a new damage evaluation method that identifies the structural damage in a shear building based on a genetic algorithm using the structural flexibility matrix with dynamic analyses. The proposed method enables the deduction of the extent and location of structural damage, even when there is insufficient data on the dynamic characteristics and insufficient accurate measurements of the structural stiffness and mass. The validity of the proposed damage evaluation method is demonstrated through numerical analyses using OpenSees.     

Detection of fatigue damage in steel using laser speckle

We investigated a method to detect fatigue damage of steels without contact using laser speckle. In the earlier stage of fatigue in steels, slipbands appear on the surface and microscopic shear strain is stored in the slipbands. The slipbands appear more densely with progress of fatigue damage. When a laser illuminates the surface of the fatigued steel, light intensity distribution of the laser speckle pattern formed by the reflected light changes with the change of surface properties caused by slipbands. It has been clarified that the width of the speckle pattern broadens corresponding to spatial frequency distribution of the surface profile and thus it is presumed that speckle pattern broadens with increase of slipband density. This shows that we can detect fatigue damage by observing the laser speckle pattern on material surface. The method presented in this paper is based on this phenomenon. We observed change of the speckle pattern during fatigue loading under constant stress amplitude using a steel specimen and the relation between speckle pattern, number of loading cycles and also magnitude of loading was considered. We investigated the possibility of detection of fatigue damage using this method and also proposed a method to estimate fatigue life by observing change tendency of the speckle pattern depending on the number of loading cycles in the earlier stage of fatigue before crack initiation.     

A local flexibility method for vibration-based damage localization and quantification

A method for vibration-based damage localization and quantification, based on quasi-static flexibility, is presented. The experimentally determined flexibility matrix is combined with a virtual load that causes nonzero stresses in a small part of the structure, where a possible local stiffness change is investigated. It is shown that, if the strain–stress relationship for the load is proportional, the ratio of some combination of deformations before and after a stiffness change has occurred, equals the inverse local stiffness ratio. The method is therefore called local flexibility (LF) method. Since the quasi-static flexibility matrix can be composed directly from modal parameters, the LF method allows to determine local stiffness variations directly from measured modal parameters, even if they are determined from output-only data. Although the LF method is in principle generally applicable, the emphasis in this paper is on beam structures. The method is validated with simulation examples of damaged isostatic and hyperstatic beams, and experiments involving a reinforced concrete free–free beam and a three-span prestressed concrete bridge, that are both subjected to a progressive damage test.     

THE CHARACTERISTIC RECEPTANCE METHOD FOR DAMAGE DETECTION IN LARGE MONO-COUPLED PERIODIC STRUCTURES

An approach based on the concept of wave propagation to detect the structural damage in large mono-coupled periodic structures is presented in this paper. The free vibration analysis of a finite mono-coupled periodic structure with a single disorder has been conducted by the characteristic receptance method, and the sensitivity of the natural frequencies to the disorder in flexibility has been discussed. Based on the sensitivity analysis, the locations and magnitude of damage in large mono-coupled periodic systems have been estimated using measured changes in the natural frequencies. The paper also introduces a substructure-based method for improving the computational efficiency and the accuracy of damage detection in large mono-coupled periodic structures. Numerical results from two periodic mass-spring-structures show that the proposed method can provide good predictions of both the locations and magnitude of damage at one or more sites. Furthermore, the proposed method, in which a priori information about the nature such as stiffness of the undamaged structure is not needed, and only measurements of the change in a few of the structure's natural frequencies between the undamaged and damaged states are required, is particularly attractive in practice. However, some issues such as the role of noise in actual measurements, application to multi-coupled periodic structures with complex boundary conditions remain to be resolved before this approach becomes a truly variable method of structural damage assessment.     

Structural damage evolution assessment using the regularised time step integration method

This paper presents an approach to identify both the location and severity evolution of damage in engineering structures directly from measured dynamic response data. A relationship between the change in structural parameters such as stiffness caused by structural damage development and the measured dynamic response data such as accelerations is proposed, on the basis of the governing equations of motion for the original and damaged structural systems. Structural damage parameters associated with time are properly chosen to reflect both the location and severity development over time of damage in a structure. Basic equations are provided to solve the chosen time-dependent damage parameters, which are constructed by using the Newmark time step integration method without requiring a modal analysis procedure. The Tikhonov regularisation method incorporating the L-curve criterion for determining the regularisation parameter is then employed to reduce the influence of measurement errors in dynamic response data and then to produce stable solutions for structural damage parameters. Results for two numerical examples with various simulated damage scenarios show that the proposed method can accurately identify the locations of structural damage and correctly assess the evolution of damage severity from information on vibration measurements with uncertainties.     

Structural damage identification for railway bridges based on train-induced bridge responses and sensitivity analysis

A damage identification approach using train-induced responses and sensitivity analysis is proposed for the nondestructive evaluation of railway bridges. The dynamic responses of railway bridges under moving trains composed of multiple vehicles are calculated by a train-bridge dynamic interaction analysis. Using the stiffness variation of the bridge element as an index for damage identification, the sensitivities of train-induced bridge responses to structural damage are analyzed and the sensitivity matrices are formed. By comparing the theoretical measurement responses of one measurement point in two different states, the damage indices of all elements are updated iteratively, and finally the absolute or relative damage is located and quantified. A three-span continuous bridge numerical example proves that the proposed dynamic response sensitivity-based FE model updating damage identification method is not only effective to detect local damage of railway bridges, but also insensitive to the track irregularity and the measurement noise.     

GUW-based structural damage detection using WPT statistical features and multiclass SVM

Recently, guided ultrasonic waves (GUW) are widely used for damage detection in structural health monitoring (SHM) of different engineering structures. In this study, an intelligent damage detection method is proposed to be used in SHM applications. At first, GUW signal is de-noised by discrete wavelet transform (DWT). After that, wavelet packet transform (WPT) is employed to decompose the de-noised signal and the statistical features of decomposed packets are extracted as damage-sensitive features. Finally, a multiclass support vector machine (SVM) classifier is used to detect the damage and estimate its severity. The proposed method is employed for GUW-based structural damage detection of a thick steel beam. The effects of different parameters on the sensitivity of the method are surveyed. Furthermore, by comparing with some other similar algorithms, the performance of the proposed method is verified. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can appropriately detect a structural damage and estimate its severity.     

基于声发射的光学元件损伤监测方法研究

光学元件损伤是限制激光通量水平提高的重要因素之一。为快速、准确地检测光学元件损伤是否产生,支撑光学元件循环修复策略的使用,研究并提出了基于声发射技术的光学元件损伤检测方法,通过研究光学元件损伤产生的声发射信号特征,判断光学元件是否发生损伤,使用一种基于二次相关和相关峰精确插值（FICP）的时延估计算法,通过仿真验证了该算法的可行性,结合时差定位原理建立了损伤位置求解方法,并通过实验进行了验证。研究结果表明:该方法能从监测信号中快速地获得损伤的位置估计,其平均定位误差为8.61 mm,计算时间为0.143 s/次,对大口径光学元件的损伤在线监测具有应用潜力。     

A frequency shift curve based damage detection method for cylindrical shell structures

A novel damage detection method based on frequency shift curve (FSC) is developed for cylindrical shell structures. The FSC is caused by auxiliary mass containing both the natural frequencies and mode shapes information. According to axis-symmetry, the FSC is flat when there is no damage. However, it shows obvious periodic peaks when localized imperfections or damages occur. Furthermore, for the +2nd FSC, the trough with minimum value indicates the circumferential location of the damage and the difference between the lowest trough value and the values of the other three troughs represents the severity of the local damage. Through changing the location of the accelerometer, which can be considered as an auxiliary mass itself, around the cylindrical shell circumference, the FSCs can be measured and then the damage can be detected and located. Moreover, the difference between the averages of ±2nd FSCs also reflects the severity of damages. Numerical simulation and experimental tests have confirmed the finding. Compared with other vibration based methods, the proposed method is fast, sensitive and feasible to implement in practice as the measured frequency is more accurate than the mode shapes, and only a single accelerometer is required in the tests.     

A damage identification technique based on embedded sensitivity analysis and optimization processes

A vibration based structural damage identification method, using embedded sensitivity functions and optimization algorithms, is discussed in this work. The embedded sensitivity technique requires only measured or calculated frequency response functions to obtain the sensitivity of system responses to each component parameter. Therefore, this sensitivity analysis technique can be effectively used for the damage identification process. Optimization techniques are used to minimize the difference between the measured frequency response functions of the damaged structure and those calculated from the baseline system using embedded sensitivity functions. The amount of damage can be quantified directly in engineering units as changes in stiffness, damping, or mass. Various factors in the optimization process and structural dynamics are studied to enhance the performance and robustness of the damage identification process. This study shows that the proposed technique can improve the accuracy of damage identification with less than 2 percent error of estimation.     

An implementation of structural change detection procedure based on experimental and numerical model correlation

A correlation of the experimental and the numerical model is implemented in order to detect structural change. The implementation of the method involves two steps: in the first the respective location is detected, and in the second the structural change is quantified. The method can detect changes in mass, stiffness or both. The numerical simulations demonstrate that the method is accurate and reliable. The method is implemented analytically and experimentally in parallel with laboratory test-cases. Improvements of the procedure are suggested and implemented in order to study the applicability to real-world cases. This study shows that model update significantly contributes to the successful structural change detection. The influence of the model reduction and model update on the detection accuracy is studied.