Damage Detection on a Full-Scale Highway Sign Structure with a Distributed Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have emerged as a novel solution to many of the challenges of structural health monitoring (SHM) in civil engineering structures. While research projects using WSNs are ongoing worldwide, implementations of WSNs on full-scale structures are limited. In this study, a WSN is deployed on a full-scale 17.3m-long, 11-bay highway sign support structure to investigate the ability to use vibration response data to detect damage induced in the structure. A multi-level damage detection strategy is employed for this structure: the Angle-between-String-and-Horizon (ASH) flexibility-based algorithm as the Level I and the Axial Strain (AS) flexibility-based algorithm as the Level II. For the proposed multi-level damage detection strategy, a coarse resolution Level I damage detection will be conducted first to detect the damaged region(s). Subsequently, a fine resolution Level II damage detection will be conducted in the damaged region(s) to locate the damaged element(s). Several damage cases are created on the full-scale highway sign support structure to validate the multi-level detection strategy. The multi-level damage detection strategy is shown to be successful in detecting damage in the structure in these cases.

Department(s)

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Full scale structure; Multi-level damage detection; Wireless sensor network

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1738-1584; 1738-1991

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2015 Techno Press, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jul 2015

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