Damage identification in beams using discrete wavelet transforms

Abstract

Researchers, over the years, have done extensive research on damage identification. In the recent years, there has been an increased impetus to conduct research on damage identification using wavelet transforms. In the present work, discrete wavelet transform (DWT) has been used to detect, locate and quantify damage in beam elements. A generalised method has been proposed to solve damage identification in beams with a single dominant crack. The proposed quantification methodology uses only the measurements made in the current (damaged) state of the beam structure. The generalised method has been proposed using a Damage Intensity Factor (DIF) to quantify damage in all beams with similar edge conditions. Formulae have also been proposed to help in quantifying the damage in simply supported and fixed beams. The proposed method has been validated using problems taken from the literature. The applicability of the proposed method to solve multiple damage cases has been demonstrated using literature problems.