Output-Only Damage Detection of Shear Building Structures Using an Autoregressive Model-Enhanced Optimal Subpattern...

Area of Science:

• Structural Health Monitoring
• Mechanical Engineering
• Civil Engineering

Background:

• Structural damage alters dynamic characteristics like natural frequencies and mode shapes.
• Existing methods often require extensive sensor networks or controlled excitation.
• Output-only methods are desirable for continuous, non-invasive structural assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel, output-only structural damage indicator.
• To localize and assess the severity of structural damage using system poles.
• To validate the proposed method through numerical simulations and experimental tests.

Main Methods:

• Utilized autoregressive (AR) models to capture the dynamic behavior of structures.
• Employed the pole-based optimal subpattern assignment (OSPA) distance to track changes in AR model poles.
• Integrated the Hungarian algorithm to construct a damage-sensitive indicator from pole shifts.

Main Results:

• The proposed indicator effectively localized and quantified structural damages.
• Validation was successful using a five-story shear-building under various excitation types (white noise, El Centro earthquake, sinusoidal sweep).
• The method demonstrated robustness in an output-only, data-driven manner.

Conclusions:

• The pole-based OSPA distance combined with AR models provides an effective output-only approach for structural damage identification.
• This method offers a reliable way to monitor structural integrity by tracking dynamic characteristic changes.
• The findings support the application of this technique for real-world structural health monitoring.