A cost-effective impedance-based structural health monitoring technique for steel structures by monitoring multiple areas

Abstract

Throughout the ages, ensuring structural safety has always been a vital task as civil infrastructures deteriorate due to the surrounding environment with time. Although various non-destructive techniques exist nowadays for maintaining the structural integrity, most of the techniques require expensive equipment with highly trained experts. In addition, onsite techniques may require a downtime period of the structure, causing inconvenience for the public. The purpose of this study is to introduce a cost-effective, impedance-based health monitoring approach using the electromechanical impedance technique. Since one device with a piezoelectric material is used to monitor a single area, this can be extremely costly when covering large areas such as bridges and buildings. To overcome this problem, a technique is introduced in this study for one device to monitor multiple areas, significantly reducing the equipment cost when covering large areas.

Keywords

piezoelectric sensor structural health monitoring electromechanical impedance nondestructive evaluation

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bhalla

Soh

(2004) Structural health monitoring by piezo-impedance transducers. I: modeling. Journal of Aerospace Engineering 17(4): 154–165.

Bhalla

Gupta

Bansal

. (2009) Ultra low cost adaptations of electro-mechanical impedance technique for structural health monitoring. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 20: 991–999.

Zhu

Wang

(2014) A study of concrete slab damage detection based on the electromechanical impedance method. Sensors 14(10): 19897–19909.

Liang

Sun

Rogers

(1994) Coupled electro-mechanical analysis of adaptive material system determination of the actuator power consumption and system energy transfer. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 5(1): 12–20.

Lee

(2012) A technique for improving the damage detection ability of electro-mechanical impedance method on concrete structures. Smart Materials and Structures 21(8): 085024

Lee

(2013) Neural network approach for damaged area location prediction of a composite plate using electromechanical impedance technique. Composites Science and Technology 88: 62–68.

Neto

RMF

Steffen

Rade

. (2011) A low-cost electromechanical impedance-based SHM architecture for multiplexed piezoceramic actuators. Structural Health Monitoring 10(4): 391–402.

Panigrahi

Bhalla

Gupta

(2009) A low-cost variant of electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) technique for structural health monitoring. Experimental Techniques 34(2): 25–29.

Park

Farrar

Scalea

. (2006) Performance assessment and validation of piezoelectric active-sensors in structural health monitoring. Smart Materials and Structures 15(6): 1673–1683.

10.

Park

Sohn

Farrar

. (2003) Overview of piezoelectric impedance-based health monitoring and path forward. Shock and Vibration 35(6): 451–463.

11.

Peairs

Park

Inman

(2004) Improving accessibility of the impedance based structural health monitoring method. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 15(2): 129–139.

12.

Shanker

Bhalla

Gupta

(2010) Integration of electro-mechanical impedance and global dynamic technique for improved structural health monitoring. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 21(3): 285–295.

13.

Sun

Chaudhry

Liang

. (1995) Truss structure integrity identification using PZT sensor-actuator. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 6(1): 134–139.

14.

Tawie

Lee

(2011) Characterization of cement-based materials using a reusable piezoelectric impedance based sensor. Smart Materials and Structures 20(8): 085023.

15.

Victor

Chaudhry

(2005) Damage detection in thin plate and aerospace structures with the electro-mechanical impedance method. Structural Health Monitoring 4(2): 99–118.

16.

Wang

Song

Zhu

(2013) Numerical and experimental studies on damage detection of a concrete beam based on PZT admittances and correlation coefficient. Construction and Building Materials 49: 564–574.

17.

Yang

Divsholi

(2010) Sub-frequency interval approach in electromechanical impedance technique for concrete structure health monitoring. Sensors 10(12): 11644–11661.

18.

Zagrai

Giurgiutiu

(2002) Electro-mechanical impedance method for crack detection in thin plates. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 12(10): 709–718.