Horizontal displacement estimation of high-rise structures by fusing strain and acceleration measurements

Abstract

Monitoring of horizontal displacement is essential for structural health monitoring of high-rise structures. This paper proposes a new technique for estimating the horizontal displacement using fusion measurements including strain and acceleration for high-rise structures. The quasi-static component of structural displacement is first derived from the measured longitudinal strains based on the classical beam theory. The quasi-static displacement is then combined with the resonant displacement determined based on the measured acceleration via a finite impulse response filtering approach to obtain the total horizontal displacement. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is examined through numerical studies, in which two cantilever beams with different sectional shapes are used to verify that the proposed technique can provide accurate estimation of horizontal displacements under different noise levels contained in signals and number of measurement points. Then, a field measurement validation study on a 600 m high skyscraper is presented to demonstrate the applicability and accuracy of the proposed technique for horizontal displacement estimation of high-rise buildings under typhoon conditions.