Post-Earthquake Damage Identification of Buildings with LMSST

Abstract

The structure is said to be damaged if there is a permanent shift in the post-event natural frequency of a structure as compared with the pre-event frequency. To assess the damage to the structure, a time-frequency approach that can capture the pre-event and post-event frequency of the structure is required. In this study, to determine these frequencies, a local maximum synchrosqueezing transform (LMSST) method is employed. Through the simulation results, we have shown that the traditional methods such as the Wigner distribution, Wigner–Ville distributions, pseudo-Wigner–Ville distributions, smoothed pseudo-Wigner–Ville distribution, and synchrosqueezing transforms are not capable of capturing the pre-event and post-event frequency of the structure. The amplitude of the signal captured by sensors during those events is very small compared with the signal captured during the seismic event. Thus, traditional methods cannot capture the frequency of pre-event and post-event, whereas LMSST employed in this work can easily identify these frequencies. This attribute of LMSST makes it a very attractive method for post-earthquake damage detection. In this study, these claims are qualitatively and quantitatively substantiated by comprehensive numerical analysis.