• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제11권2호
• /
• pp.217-240
• /
• 2013

In this paper, practical methods to utilize PZT's dual piezoelectric effects (i.e., dynamic strain and electro-mechanical (E/M) impedance responses) for damage detection in beam-type structures are presented. In order to achieve the objective, the following approaches are implemented. Firstly, PZT material's dual piezoelectric characteristics on dynamic strain and E/M impedance are investigated. Secondly, global vibration-based and local impedance-based methods to detect the occurrence and the location of damage are presented. Finally, the vibration-based and impedance-based damage detection methods using the dual piezoelectric responses are evaluated from experiments on a lab-scaled beam for several damage scenarios. Damage detection results from using PZT sensor are compared with those obtained from using accelerometer and electric strain gauge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제22권6호
• /
• pp.699-709
• /
• 2018

With increasing traffic volumes and rising vehicle traffic, especially in cities, the number of pedestrian bridges has also increased significantly. Like all other structures, pedestrian bridges also suffer damage. In order to increase the safety of pedestrians, it is necessary to identify existing damage and to repair them to ensure the safety of the bridge structures. Owing to the shortcomings of local methods in identifying damage and in order to enhance the reliability of detection and identification of structural faults, signal methods have seen significant development in recent years. In this research, a new methodology, based on cone-shaped kernel distribution with a new damage index, has been used for damage detection in pedestrian truss bridges. To evaluate the proposed method, the numerical models of the Warren Type steel truss and the Arregar steel footbridge were used. Based on the results, the proposed method and damage index identified the damage and determined its location with a high degree of precision. Given the ease of use, the proposed method can be used to identify faults in pedestrian bridges.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• 제18권3호
• /
• pp.321-335
• /
• 2020

The aim of the present contribution is to consider and underline the essential interactions among the historical knowledge, the seismic vulnerability assessment, the investigation experimental tools, the preservation of the architectural quality and the strengthening design in regard to architectural heritage conservation. These topics are argued in relation to Palazzo Murena in Perugia, designed in the eighteenth century by the famous Architect Luigi Vanvitelli, and currently headquarters of the city's University. Based on the surveys and the visual inspections, a preliminary a priori global analysis has been performed by means of the FME method. The obtained results permitted to plan an experimental tests campaign inclusive of structural health monitoring. The new achieved "knowledge" of the building allowed to refine the seismic safety assessment. In particular it was highlighted that the "mezzanine floor" can be a vulnerable element of the building with the collapse of its masonry walls. Preserving the architectural characteristics, a local reinforcement intervention is proposed for the above-mentioned level; this consists of the application of plaster with FRCM, assuring an adequate strength, without burden the masonry structure with additional weight, and therefore a decreasing of the seismic vulnerability. The necessity to consider, in this ongoing research, other local mechanisms is highlighted in the unfolding of the last part of work.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제5권1호
• /
• pp.43-54
• /
• 2009

This study introduces a novel approach for locating damage in a structure using wireless sensor system with local level computational capability to alleviate data traffic load on the centralized computation. Smart wireless sensor systems, capable of iterative damage-searching, mimic an optimization process in a decentralized way. The proposed algorithm tries to detect damage in a structure by monitoring abnormal increases in strain measurements from a group of wireless sensors. Initially, this clustering technique provides a reasonably effective sensor placement within a structure. Sensor clustering also assigns a certain number of master sensors in each cluster so that they can constantly monitor the structural health of a structure. By adopting a voting system, a group of wireless sensors iteratively forages for a damage location as they can be activated as needed. Since all of the damage searching process occurs within a small group of wireless sensors, no global control or data traffic to a central system is required. Numerical simulation demonstrates that the newly developed searching algorithm implemented on wireless sensors successfully localizes stiffness damage in a plate through the local level reconfigurable function of smart sensors.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• 제19권3호
• /
• pp.261-279
• /
• 2005

The hot spot stress approach is usually adopted in the fatigue design and analysis of tubular welded joints. To apply the hot spot stress approach for fatigue evaluation of long span suspension bridges, the FEM is used to determine the hot spot stress of critical fatigue location. Using the local finite element models of the Tsing Ma Bridge, typical joints are developed and the stress concentration factors are determined. As a case for study, the calculated stress concentration factor is combined with the nominal representative stress block cycle to obtain the representative hot spot stress range cycle block under traffic loading from online health monitoring system. A comparison is made between the nominal stress approach and the hot spot stress approach for fatigue life evaluation of the Tsing Ma Bridge. The comparison result shows that the nominal stress approach cannot consider the most critical stress of the fatigue damage location and the hot spot stress approach is more appropriate for fatigue evaluation.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제17권6호
• /
• pp.957-980
• /
• 2016

Structural damage detection (SDD) is a challenging task in the field of structural health monitoring (SHM). As an exploring attempt to the SDD problem, a hybrid self-adaptive Firefly-Nelder-Mead (SA-FNM) algorithm is proposed for the SDD problem in this study. First of all, the basic principle of firefly algorithm (FA) is introduced. The Nelder-Mead (NM) algorithm is incorporated into FA for improving the local searching ability. A new strategy for exchanging the information in the firefly group is introduced into the SA-FNM for reducing the computation cost. A random walk strategy for the best firefly and a self-adaptive control strategy of three key parameters, such as light absorption, randomization parameter and critical distance, are proposed for preferably balancing the exploitation and exploration ability of the SA-FNM. The computing performance of the SA-FNM is evaluated and compared with the basic FA by three benchmark functions. Secondly, the SDD problem is mathematically converted into a constrained optimization problem, which is then hopefully solved by the SA-FNM algorithm. A multi-step method is proposed for finding the minimum fitness with a big probability. In order to assess the accuracy and the feasibility of the proposed method, a two-storey rigid frame structure without considering the finite element model (FEM) error and a steel beam with considering the model error are taken examples for numerical simulations. Finally, a series of experimental studies on damage detection of a steel beam with four damage patterns are performed in laboratory. The illustrated results show that the proposed method can accurately identify the structural damage. Some valuable conclusions are made and related issues are discussed as well.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• 제78권5호
• /
• pp.599-610
• /
• 2021

Early detection of small concrete crack or reinforcement corrosion is necessary for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). Global vibration based methods are advantageous over local methods because of simple equipment installation and cost efficiency. Among vibration based techniques, FRF based methods are preferred over modal based methods. In this study, a new coupled method using frequency response function (FRF) and proper orthogonal modes (POM) is proposed by using the dynamic characteristic of a damaged beam. For the numerical simulation, wave finite element (WFE), coupled with traditional finite element (FE) method is used for effectively incorporating the damage related information and faster computation. As reported in literature, hybrid combination of wave function based wave finite element method and shape function based finite element method can addresses the mid frequency modelling difficulty as it utilises the advantages of both the methods. It also reduces the dynamic matrix dimension. The algorithms are implemented on a three-dimensional reinforced concrete beam. Damage is modelled and studied for two scenarios, i.e., crack in concrete and rebar corrosion. Single and multiple damage locations with different damage length are also considered. The proposed methodology is found to be very sensitive to both single- and multiple- damage while being computationally efficient at the same time. It is observed that the detection of damage due to corrosion is more challenging than that of concrete crack. The similarity index obtained from the damage parameters shows that it can be a very effective indicator for appropriately indicating initiation of damage in concrete structure in the form of spread corrosion or invisible crack.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제32권4호
• /
• pp.267-279
• /
• 2023

Data modelling and interpretation for structural health monitoring (SHM) field data are critical for evaluating structural performance and quantifying the vulnerability of infrastructure systems. In order to improve the data modelling accuracy, and extend the application range from data regression analysis to out-of-sample forecasting analysis, an improved most likely heteroscedastic Gaussian process (iMLHGP) methodology is proposed in this study by the incorporation of the outof-sample forecasting algorithm. The proposed iMLHGP method overcomes this limitation of constant variance of Gaussian process (GP), and can be used for estimating non-stationary typhoon-induced response statistics with high volatility. The first attempt at performing data regression and forecasting analysis on structural responses using the proposed iMLHGP method has been presented by applying it to real-world filed SHM data from an instrumented cable-stay bridge during typhoon events. Uncertainty quantification and correlation analysis were also carried out to investigate the influence of typhoons on bridge strain data. Results show that the iMLHGP method has high accuracy in both regression and out-of-sample forecasting. The iMLHGP framework takes both data heteroscedasticity and accurate analytical processing of noise variance (replace with a point estimation on the most likely value) into account to avoid the intensive computational effort. According to uncertainty quantification and correlation analysis results, the uncertainties of strain measurements are affected by both traffic and wind speed. The overall change of bridge strain is affected by temperature, and the local fluctuation is greatly affected by wind speed in typhoon conditions.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• 제15권5호
• /
• pp.1373-1392
• /
• 2015

Placing sensors at appropriate locations is an important task in the design of an efficient structural health monitoring (SHM) system for a large-scale civil structure. In this paper, a hybrid optimization algorithm called virus monkey algorithm (VMA) based on the virus theory of evolution is proposed to seek the optimal placement of sensors. Firstly, the dual-structure coding method is adopted instead of binary coding method to code the solution. Then, the VMA is designed to incorporate two populations, a monkey population and a virus population, enabling the horizontal propagation between the monkey and virus individuals and the vertical inheritance of monkey's position information from the previous to following position. Correspondingly, the monkey population in this paper is divided into the superior and inferior monkey populations, and the virus population is divided into the serious and slight virus populations. The serious virus is used to infect the inferior monkey to make it escape from the local optima, while the slight virus is adopted to infect the superior monkey to let it find a better result in the nearby area. This kind of novel virus infection operator enables the coevolution of monkey and virus populations. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed VMA is demonstrated by designing the sensor network of the Canton Tower, the tallest TV Tower in China. Results show that innovations in the VMA proposed in this paper can improve the convergence of algorithm compared with the original monkey algorithm (MA).

• 비파괴검사학회지
• /
• 제31권4호
• /
• pp.360-366
• /
• 2011

강재 케이블 부재는 부식, 파탄 등으로 인한 단면손실이 발생할 수 있고, 이로 인한 손상부의 응력 집중으로 인해 시설물 전체의 붕괴로 이어질 수 있는 위험성을 가진다. 따라서 조기에 단면손실을 찾아 사고를 미연에 방지할 수 있는 강재 케이블 비파괴검사 기술이 필수적이다. 이에 본 연구에서는 E/M 센서를 이용한 강재 케이블 모니터링 기술을 제안하고자 한다. E/M 센서(elasto-magnetic sensor)는 본래 케이블의 장력측정을 위해 개발되었지만 본 연구에서는 강재의 국부 단면손상 검색을 위해 적용하였다. 제안된 기술의 실험적 검증을 위해 E/M 센서를 이용하여 4가지의 다른 직경을 가지는 강봉시편을 자화시켜 출력전압을 계측하였고, 그 결과 강봉의 직경이 감소함에 따라 출력전압이 감소함을 보였다. 반복실험을 통해 해상도 및 선형성이 확보되는 최적의 입력전압과 워킹포인트를 선정하였고, 선정된 조건에서 다양한 국부적인 손상이 주어진 강봉시편에서 출력전압을 계측한 결과 손상의 깊이 및 너비가 커짐에 따라 출력전압의 감소가 커짐을 확인하였다. 본 실험을 통해 제안된 E/M 센서를 이용한 강재 케이블 모니터링 기술의 적용가능성을 확인할 수 있었다.