Abstract
Accurate estimation of cable tension is crucial for the structural health monitoring of cable-supported structures. Identifying the cable’s force from its vibration data is probably the most widely adopted method of cable tension estimation. According to string theory, the accuracy of estimated cable tension is highly related to identified modal parameters including natural frequencies and frequency order. To alleviate the factors that impact the accuracy of modal parameters when using the peak-picking method in wireless sensor networks, a fully automated and robust identifying method is proposed in this paper. This novel method was implemented on the Xnode wireless sensor system and validated with the data obtained from Jindo Bridge. The experiment results indicate that, through this method, the wireless sensor is able to distinguish the cognizable power spectrum, extract the peaks, eliminate false frequencies and determine frequency orders automatically to estimate cable tension force without any manual intervention or preprocessing. Meanwhile, the results of natural frequencies, corresponding orders and cable tension force obtained from the Xnode system show excellent agreement with the results obtained using the Matlab program method. This demonstrates the effectiveness and reliability of the Xnode estimation system. Furthermore, this method is also appropriate for other high-performance wireless sensor network systems to realize self-identification of cable in long-term monitoring.
Highlights
Cable-supported systems are widely used in large span space structures, such as air-supported roofs, cable-stayed bridges, suspension bridges, cable domes, and so on [1].As main load bearing components, cables play important roles in these structures and their failure may result in the structure’s accidental collapse
Considering the aforementioned problems, an improved strategy based on vibration method is developed for a wireless sensor to realize fully automated and robust cable tension estimation
To take full advantage of a smart sensor system, a robust and fully automated cable tension estimation method based on ambient vibration was proposed in this study
Summary
Cable-supported systems are widely used in large span space structures, such as air-supported roofs, cable-stayed bridges, suspension bridges, cable domes, and so on [1]. Previous research has achieved successful results in cable tension force monitoring, there are still some problems to be solved, which mainly include: (1) Preprocessing or manual interventions required during testing, such as pre-calculated reference modal parameters or picking peaks manually, are usually inescapable [25,26,27]. This is a big challenge for large-scale cable structures with a dense array of sensors. The data collected from Jindo Bridge employed to verify the feasibility of the system
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