Structural damage detection using enhanced damage locating vector method with limited wireless sensors

Abstract

For detection of damage in structures, the damage locating vector (DLV) method is adapted to account for the different types and variations of internal forces and capacities along the length of each element by using the normalized cumulative energy instead of the normalized cumulative stress. To filter out the actual damaged elements from the identified set of potential damaged elements, an intersection scheme is proposed. A 2-D warehouse structure comprising beam and column elements with constant and varied cross-sectional areas, and truss elements is used to verify the enhancements to the DLV method. With wireless sensors being integrated into damage detection systems, practical issues need to be addressed in conjunction with the detection algorithm employed. For cases where raw signals are transmitted, the intermittent loss of data packets during transmission from the sensor nodes to the base station needs to be addressed. An algorithm to patch the lost data is proposed and when integrated with the DLV damage detection methodology, is experimentally shown to be feasible using a 3-D modular truss structure. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.