Optimal Sensor Placement Algorithm for Structural Damage Identification

Abstract

Background: Structural damage identification is a very important subject in the field of civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering according to recent patents. Optimal sensor placement is one of the key problems to be solved in structural damage identification. Methods: This paper presents a simple and convenient algorithm for optimizing sensor locations for structural damage identification. Unlike other algorithms found in the published papers, the optimization procedure of sensor placement is divided into two stages. The first stage is to determine the key parts in the whole structure by their contribution to the global flexibility perturbation. The second stage is to place sensors on the nodes associated with those key parts for monitoring possible damage more efficiently. With the sensor locations determined by the proposed optimization process, structural damage can be readily identified by using the incomplete modes yielded from these optimized sensor measurements. In addition, an Improved Ridge Estimate (IRE) technique is proposed in this study to effectively resist the data errors due to modal truncation and measurement noise. Two truss structures and a frame structure are used as examples to demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the presented algorithm. Results: From the numerical results, structural damages can be successfully detected by the proposed method using the partial modes yielded by the optimal measurement with 5% noise level. Conclusion: It has been shown that the proposed method is simple to implement and effective for structural damage identification.

A Novel Runtime Algorithm for the Real-Time Analysis and Detection of Unexpected Changes in a Real-Size SHM Network with Quasi-Distributed FBG Sensors

“…The strain sensors have a precision of 1 µm/m and the temperature sensors of 0.1 °C. More information about the FBG sensors and fiber optic sensing in SHM of concrete structures can be found in [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 ].…”

“…At the same time, sensors can be placed at a finite number of locations [ 28 ], leaving a gap between the experimental SHM results and the real structural response [ 29 ]. While OSP algorithms based on modal analysis are well established [ 30 ], few researchers discuss OSP based on static parameters such as stress, strain, cracking, and long-term deformation [ 31 , 32 ]. Furthermore, different structure types require different OSP approaches.…”

Optimal sensor placement through expansion of static strain measurements to static displacements

“…Importing the concept of generalized equivalent stiffness, He et al 13 determined the sensor placement scheme according to the statistical data. Li and Yang 14 presented an algorithm divided into two stages for optimizing sensor locations.…”

Experimental Study for Damage Identification of Storage Tanks by Adding Virtual Masses

“…In recent years, damage identification techniques based on vibration testing [24,25] have been widely developed and applied; it is very important in such approaches to select a suitable damage index [26]. These methods can identify the damage before it is visible [27,28], so that the structure can be repaired before the damage becomes severe.…”