A damage detection technique for reinforced concrete structures

Abstract

Civil engineering structures, such as reinforced concrete frames, exhibit nonlinear hysteretic behavior when subject to dynamic loads, such as earthquakes. The ability to detect damages in structures after a major earthquake will ensure their reliability and safety. Innovative analysis techniques for damage detection of structures have been extensively studied recently. However, practical and effective damage identification techniques remain to be developed for nonlinear structures, in particular hysteretic reinforced concrete (RC) structures. In this paper, a smooth hysteretic model with stiffness and strength degradations and with the pinching effect is used to represent the dynamic characteristics of reinforced concrete (RC) frames. A system identification method capable of detecting damages in nonlinear structures, referred to as the adaptive quadratic sum-square error with unknown inputs (AQSSE-UI), is used to detect damages in hysteretic RC frames. The performance of the AQSSE-UI technique is demonstrated by the experimental data. A 1/3 scale 2-story RC frame has been tested experimentally on the shake table at NCREE, Taiwan. This 2-story RC frame was subject to different levels of ground excitations back to back. The RC frame is firstly considered as a linear model with rotational springs and the tracking of the degradation of the stiffness parameters is carried out using the AQSSE-UI technique. Then the same RC frame is considered as a nonlinear structure with plastic hinges following a smooth hysteretic model. Experimental results show that the AQSSE-UI technique is quite effective for tracking of : (i) the stiffness degradation of linear structures, and (ii) the non-linear hysteretic parameters with stiffness and strength degradations.