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Structures face various loadings and confront different circumstances as they are built and used. This situation causes the aging structures to deteriorate, which would lead to a decrease in reliability and safety. In the recent decades, the need for systems to assure the integrity of structures in terms of their age, usage and level of safety when experiencing infrequent and extreme forces such as earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, large waves has deeply been recognized. These systems are often referred to as structural health monitoring (SHM) in the literature. The main objective of such system is to increase reliable operating lifetime. In the case of offshore structures, utilizing... 

Pipeline systems are one of the cheapest ways for distribution and transportation of petroleum and natural gas. The testing of pipes used in the petroleum industry is necessary to avoid unplanned process interruptions, environmental pollution and provide good safety. One of the methods which is used for pipeline inspection is the ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) technique. The use of conventional NDT techniques such as ultrasonic thickness gauging is a slow inspection process, which becomes very expensive when full inspection is needed. Ultrasonic guided waves provide an appropriate fast screening technique. These waves stress the whole pipe wall and propagate along the length of the... 

Damage detection by Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors is one of the emerging efficient and dominant Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) methods. These sensors assess the health state of the structure due two strategies: a) near-field damage detection, b) far-field damage detection. The far-field damage detection is based on the high frequency Lamb wave propagation. As wave travels in a damaged structure, phase and amplitude of the wave will be changed. So comparison of the received signal from the pristine structure with damaged structure can give useful information about the health state of the structure. As PWAS is the essential part of this method, simulation and modeling of this sensors... 

Cost-effective and reliable damage detection is critical for utilization of composite materials. This research investigates a wavelet-based approach for SHM and detection of through-thickness crack in different lengths and angles in [0/45/-45/90]s CF/EP composite plate utilizing ANSYS finite element method (FEM) software and digital signal processing technique utilizing MATLAB software. To this end, a dual-PZT actuation scheme is applied, aimed at generating the S0 mode at a square composite plate. This study contributes to the damage detection by developing an improved wavelet-based signal processing technique that enhances the visibility and interpretation of the Lamb wave signals related... 

In the regard of structural health monitoring the identification of the structural modal parameters is essential. Since the different sources (wind, waves, Devices …) induce vibration on an offshore platform, it is impossible to determine the portion of each source in vibration. Thus the methods that analyze vibrations needless of input measurements are more efficient. These methods apply the ambient factors and obtain the modal properties from the structural response. This procedure has no unwanted effect on the serviceability of structure and by placement of sensors on the platform; one can monitor the structural health.
In the present work a two dimensional jacket offshore platform... 

In this study, damage detection of brick masonry walls using a unique signal processing technique has been addressed. Firstly, the pushover analysis and the calibration of the model is performed. Then, the dynamic analysis of the wall under earthquake excitation in three cases with different aspect ratios is conducted. Finally the dynamic properties of the system, namely natural frequency and modal damping ratio, are identified using continuous wavelet transform. The advantage of wavelet transform is its fine time-frequency resolution. The Morlet mother wavelet is used since it can provide the best time-frequency resolution based on Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Afterwards, the... 

Principal component analysis (PCA) is a conventional tool for dynamic system analysis. In this paper, a new damage diagnosis method is presented based on sensitivities of principal components obtained from PCA of Frequency response functions (FRFs). Damage identification, determination of its location and estimation of the damage severity are conducted by an innovative well established sensitivity relation of PCA results. Then, sensitivity matrix is obtained by using measured frequency of damaged structure, and comparison of PCA of the intact structure with PCA from FRFs which are measured at sensors locations. Damage location and its severity are calculated by model updating procedure. This... 

High construction and installation costs of offshore platforms, and also harsh environments in which they operate, make health monitoring of these structures more important. Conventional methods to solve the health monitoring problem are deterministic, whereas much uncertainties are imposed to the problem. In most methods of health monitoring methods we try to identify natural frequencies and mode shapes of structures by using its dynamic response. This set of data is then compared to results of modal analysis performed on a finite element model of structure in order to detect any possible damage. In deterministic methods each response of structure is pertained to one damage state, in a... 

Rotary equipment are being used in many industries over a wide range of applications, such as gas turbine. Due to the nature of the operating conditions, gas turbines are subjected to variety of damages especially crack propagation of a blade. The Cracks propagation may lead to catastrophic failure during operation. Therefore, detection of the crack presence and its propagation is very important and may reduce possible significant cost of the whole system failure. The thesis aims to investigate the cracks presence and their propagation effects on vibration of a turbine blade which is located at the National Iranian South Oilfields. First, theoretical study is calculated to validate an... 

Offshore platforms are the most important and enormous wealth of each country that these structures are in situation thatthelikelihoodof damageinhigh. With considering this pointthatplatformsaresubjected to oscillatinglateralloads, so the occurrenceand growth offatigue crack sinthe misvery common. These cracks are always seen in jacket connections, cause these connections are bearing large forces and have massive welding and the presence ofresidualstresses. The fatigue crack caused negligible change in stiffness of connections and in consequence insignificant change in stiffness of structure; So for this reason, they are difficult to detect in global methods. Fiber optic sensors and... 

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a multidisciplinary emerging research field. SHM assesses the health state of the structure through processing and interpreting of signals and can predict remain life of the structure. Damage detection with Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors (PWAS) is one of the effective and emerging methods of SHM. One of the most critical parts of aerial structures is lap joints in which SHM could be very effective. In this research, damage detection of lap joints using lamb wave propagation has been studied. A 3D model of an aluminum lap joint presented. The PWAS are modeled separately and bonded to the host structure and coupled electromechanically with the... 

Nowadays, the structural health monitoring is considered as an essential element in improving the performance of the structures. The role and importance of the issues in this area have been reached to the point that different ideas and policies are developed for the safety margin over the useful life of the structures. To analyze more accurately, a real model of a turbine blade is required. This issue would be taken into more consideration when the scale of the turbine gets larger. Changing of the design philosophies over time results in effective changes in the design process and maintenance procedures. Any single of these inspections has different importance according to users' demands. In... 

In recent years world countries faced with the ageing aircraft fleet problem which increased the repair and maintenance costs of these aircrafts. The non-destructive inspection methods are common inspection methods of old aircrafts. To do this, the aircraft must test with a certain time scheduled inspection programme in a hangar. This method not only increased the repair and maintenance costs but also affects the flight schedule. To overcome this problem, the structural health monitoring can use to online monitoring the structure and when it needs for repair, the aircraft send to hanger. So, repair and maintenance costs minimize while the flight schedule less affected. One of the structural... 

Performance of civil infrastructures, such as high-rise buildings, bridges, tunnels, offshore platforms and other structures may be critically influenced by existence of structural damages or even lead to devastating consequences. Structural Health Monitoring(SHM) and damage detection denotes the ability to monitor the performance of structure, detect and assess any damage at the earliest stage in order to reduce the life-cycle cost of structure and improve its reliability and safety. Generally, damage is defined as some changes in the physical properties of a structure, such as stiffness matrix. On the other hand, presence of damage causes changes in structural dynamic characteristics, such... 

This study presents the best layout with optimal number of sensors for an arbitrary monitoring area based on reference free damage detection and localization. In recent years, damage detection approaches with the concept of instantaneous baseline measurements in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) with lamb wave propagation are being developed. An array of spars transducers is obligatory in SHM with lamb wave propagation, so that designing the best one is a concern for many researchers. To obtain the best sensors layout, damage localization process should be done for all definable sensors layouts in many different crack positions. Obviously, doing this seems not practical as wave propagation... 

In this thesis, due to the importance of pressurized structures, method or methods that can be used to monitor the health of important structures, such as pressurized pipes (gas transmission and distribution lines or hydraulic lines), are considered. A key point in monitoring such structures is to ensure the function of pipes, elbows, Tee junctions, composite to composite and composite to metal joints. The topic that will be discussed more than anything else here is to monitor the health of the structure in the presence of cracks in some layers of composite pieces. In fact, it must be recognized before cracking occurs in all layers of composite pieces and causing overall damage to the... 

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the extent of damage of rectangular reinforced concrete shear walls after an earthquake using surface crack patterns. One of the most important tasks after an earthquake is to assess the safety and classify the performance level of buildings. This assessment is usually performed by visual inspection that is prone to significant errors. In this research, an extensive database on the images of damaged rectangular reinforced concrete shear walls is collected from the literature. This database includes more than 200 images from experimental quasi-static cyclic tests. Using the concept of Fractal geometry, several probabilistic models are developed by... 

Bridges are among the crucial elements of transportation networks, and play an important role in facilitating emergency relief efforts following earthquakes. For this reason, it is emparative to monitor their damages to ensure about their performace in earthquakes. The structure of a bridge is divided into two parts, namely the superstructure and substructure. Due to the relatively high rigidity and strength of superstructures, most of structural damage is usually concentrated in substructures, which may ultimately affect the overall stability of the bridge. Therefore, assessing the level of damage in the substructure is of utmost concern. This research attempts to evaluate the damage in the... 

In presence of epistemic and aleatoric uncertainties of the structural systems, it is better to investigate the events in probabilistic manner. Bayesian inference is an approach that can update the current knowledge of probabilities with new evidence. The main objective of this study was evaluating the advanteges of using Bayesian approach in two main area of structural health monitoring, model calibration and decision making. In each of these two areas, one case study was conducted. First case study was prediction of crack growth life in a pre-cracked aluminum plate and the results showed that using Bayesian approach in calibration of crack growth model and measurement model of health... 

Structural health monitoring (SHM) has been motivated in aircraft and civil industries over the two last decades. Ultrasonic guided wave propagation technique is one of the best damage detection methods in airplane thin wall structures because of their large distance traveling and low attenuation.
In fact by efficient design of sensors pattern one can effectively pick up the changes that happen in propagated signals due to presence of any kind of structural damage. This could be effectively achieved by numerical simulation techniques like finite element modeling. To obtain a damage detection algorithm based on instantaneous baseline data, here, finite element technique is employed for...