Structural Health Monitoring Usingwavelet Transformnumerically and Experimentally

Abstract

Monitoring structure condition and detecting structural damage at the earliest possible stage have been a focus research recently. In this paper, a procedure for damage detection using wavelet analysis is presented. Damage identification in beams includes two steps. The first step is to detect the damage location, and the second step is to calculate the damage severity. A numerical simulation by Matlab is created to calculate the beam mode shapes. The damage location could be obtained by analyzing the fundamental mode shape by wavelet analysis. Effects of noise on detecting the damage are analyzed. Experimental tests are done to validate this technique in detecting damage location and damage severity. Two wavelet transforms (continuous, discrete) are used to analyze both the calculated and measured fundamental mode shape. Detailed parametric studies were conducted by changing damage location, intensity and wavelet families. These studies showed that the proposed technique could accurately predict the damage location and its severity.