Baseline-free Damage Detection Research Articles

Best reconstruction frequency for time-reversal process of Lamb waves and its determination from a single measurement

This article presents a theoretical framework for the concept of the best reconstruction frequency (BRF) of Lamb waves in elastic plates and its significance in the context of structural health monitoring (SHM). The time-reversal process (TRP) of Lamb waves has been widely explored for baseline-free damage detection in thin-walled structures. Previous studies have indicated that the accuracy of damage detection can be significantly improved by exciting Lamb waves at a frequency where the time-reversibility in the undamaged state is maximum within a desired frequency range. This frequency, termed the BRF, has been determined phenomenologically in prior research but lacked a rigorous theoretical foundation. In this study, the BRF is derived as the frequency at which the amplitude dispersion of the main mode of the reconstructed signal after the TRP is minimized. Accordingly, a method is put forth to determine this frequency from a single measurement using a broadband excitation eliminating the need to compute the similarity between the reconstructed and input waveforms at different excitation frequencies. The developed theory is validated with experiments conducted on an aluminium plate with Lamb waves generated and sensed by surface-bonded piezoelectric patch transducers. Notably, the study establishes that the BRF is a system property specific to a given transducer-plate-adhesive system and is independent of the distance between transducers. This characteristic makes it suitable for identifying damage locations when employing multiple sensing paths. The findings constitute an important milestone in understanding the TRP of Lamb waves and developing robust SHM technologies based on it.

Amplitude Dispersion Compensation in Time-Reversed Lamb Waves for Enhanced Sensitivity in Damage Detection

In Lamb wave-based baseline-free damage detection employing the time-reversal method (TRM), the damage index (DI) is computed from the similarity between the main mode of the reconstructed signal obtained after the time-reversal process (TRP) and the input signal, both normalized. However, a perfect similarity with a zero DI value cannot be achieved for undamaged structures due to the amplitude dispersion of Lamb waves, which is not compensated in the TRP. Thus, a nonzero DI does not necessarily indicate the presence of damage. Even worse is the fact that the similarity and, therefore, the DI for the pristine structure depend on the probing frequency, making it difficult to estimate a unique threshold value of DI for damage identification. The imperfect reconstruction also significantly reduces the relative sensitivity of the DI to the presence of damage. In this article, we propose a method to compensate the amplitude dispersion in the main mode of the reconstructed signal for undamaged metallic plates to achieve a zero threshold of DI. First, the transfer function of the main mode of the reconstructed signal for an undamaged path (the path with the least DI for a network of sensing paths) is obtained by exciting the actuator with a broadband excitation and extracting the S0 and A0 modes from the forward response measured at the sensor. To compensate the amplitude dispersion in the TRP-generated main mode, the transfer function of the recorded signal of a path is divided by the transfer function of the main mode obtained for the undamaged path. A comprehensive numerical study shows that the DI computed with the compensated reconstructed signal has much higher sensitivity to damage than that without applying the proposed compensation at all frequencies, providing the flexibility to choose the probing frequency according to the desired damage size to be detected.

A novel demodulation method with a reference signal for operational modal analysis and baseline-free damage detection of a beam under random excitation

A novel demodulation method with a reference signal is developed for operational modal analysis and damage detection of a beam structure under random excitation. The novel demodulation method can process measurements of the beam by a continuously scanning laser Doppler vibrometer (CSLDV) system and measurements of a reference point on the beam by a single-point laser Doppler vibrometer to estimate its modal parameters, such as damped natural frequencies and undamped mode shapes. Damped natural frequencies of the beam are estimated from fast Fourier transforms of measurements of the CSLDV system. A cross-correlation function between a measurement of the CSLDV system and a measurement of a single-point laser Doppler vibrometer is calculated, and the cross-correlation function is multiplied by a sinusoidal signal whose frequency is an estimated damped natural frequency of the beam. The processed cross-correlation function is filtered by a low-pass filter to obtain the undamped mode shape of the beam that corresponds to the estimated damped natural frequency of the beam. Smooth polynomials are used to fit estimated undamped mode shapes, which can be considered as undamped mode shapes of an undamaged beam. Curvatures of estimated undamped mode shapes and polynomials are compared by curvature damage indices to determine the location of a damage in the beam. The novel demodulation method with a reference signal is investigated for baseline-free damage detection from both finite element simulation and experiment. Modal parameters of a finite element model of the damaged beam and a damaged beam specimen, which are under random excitation, are successfully estimated, and locations of damages in the beam model and beam specimen are accurately determined.

Baseline-free structural damage detection using PCA- Hilbert transform with limited sensors

Conventional vibration-based damage identification methods need a large number of sensors on the bridge to identify the structural modal information and rely on the response data of bridges under a non-damage state for comparison, which restricts their implementations in the health monitoring of bridge structures in service. This paper proposes a baseline-free structural damage detection method based on limited sensor information. The proposed method uses the Hilbert transform combined with principal component analysis (PCA) to locate the damage. Firstly, PCA is performed on the displacement response data matrix of the bridge under a moving load to obtain the principal component matrix. According to the physical interpretation of PCA of the responses of a beam-like bridge under a moving load, each column of the principal component matrix, namely the principal component, composes of a mode shape and the dynamic information at this modal frequency of the bridge. The dynamic information of the modal frequency is indirectly obtained by filtering out the mode shape by low pass filter. Then the Hilbert transform is used to process the dynamic component information to receive the instantaneous frequency which is regarded as the damage index. When the structure is damaged, the first instantaneous frequency at the damaged location changes abruptly. To demonstrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed method, numerical simulations and experimental validations on beam bridge models are conducted. The results show that the method is free from the requirement of the information of bridges under the undamaged state, and only limited sensors are needed to locate the damage.

Detection and localization of corrosion using identical-group- velocity Lamb wave modes

ABSTRACT Multimodal is the prominent characteristic of Lamb waves, which means a variety of Lamb wave modes propagate in the structure and each of them has unique propagation behaviour. For a wideband multimodal Lamb wave signal, it is possible that many different modes share the same group velocity at some frequency points, while their dispersion behaviours change differently to thickness variation. In this study, the diversity and difference of the interaction between the corrosion and Lamb wave modes are investigated. On this basis, a corrosion index (CI) is established to evaluate the time gap between two modes at their identical group velocity points. The simulation results show that the CI value of a corroded path is obviously larger than that of a healthy path, indicating the presence of the damage, which is independent of any base-line signal. Furthermore, the new reconstruction algorithm for the probabilistic inspection of damage (RAPID) was proposed, where the signal difference coefficient was replaced by the CI to visualise damage location. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed multimodal Lamb wave baseline-free damage detection method.

Baseline-free damage detection and sizing under varying temperatures using Lamb waves without temperature compensation

The Lamb wave time-reversal method (TRM) has been widely proposed as a baseline-free technique for Structural health monitoring (SHM) of plate/shell-type structures. Still, its efficacy has never been tested under a variable environment. The present study examines the conventional TRM and establishes that it is unsuitable for baseline-free detection and sizing of damage under varying temperatures since the damage index (DI) is prone to change with temperature rise and generally has low sensitivity to damage. The investigation is performed for block mass-type and notch-type defects using experiments and numerical simulations. The study further tests the refined time-reversal method (RTRM), presented recently, against the same objective. This technique uses Lamb waves of the best reconstruction frequency to probe the structure, at which the reconstructed signal in a healthy plate undergoes minimum deviation from the input signal. It considers an extended wave packet for computing the DI instead of using the main mode alone. We show that this process leads to the lowest DI for undamaged plates and the highest sensitivity to damage. Also, the DI remains almost unchanged during temperature change, irrespective of the damage type, size, and plate thickness. It makes the RTRM very effective for baseline-free identification and sizing of damage under varying temperatures.

Damage detection in composite laminates using nonlinear guided wave mixing

This paper presents a delamination damage detection technique based on the nonlinear response of Lamb waves in composite laminates. In the approach, a network of transducers is employed to sequentially scan the structure by actuating and receiving dual guided waves. Using combined frequency waves originated due to contact nonlinearity when the incident dual frequency wave interacts with the damage, a damage localization imaging algorithm is proposed to locate the damage and determine the damage location. The proposed damage localization imaging algorithm is based on analysing the cross-correlation of the signal envelope at combined frequency wave with the excitation pulse envelope at incident waves for each transducer pair, the damage localization image is constructed. A numerical study using an experimentally validated finite element model is used to verify the proposed damage detection technique. The results of the numerical study show that, despite the small amplitude of the nonlinear components, the proposed method can effectively predict the damage location, and it does not require baseline measurements, which makes it potential to be a baseline-free damage detection technique.

A Novel Baseline-Free Damage Detection Method Based on Path Scanning of Lamb Waves Using Mobile Transducers.

The baseline-free damage detection method of Lamb waves has the potential to obtain damage information efficiently in plate structures through damage scattering signals. However, the missing detection of damage occurs occasionally due to the angular scattering characteristic of Lamb waves. To solve this problem, a novel baseline-free damage detection approach based on path scanning at the detection region edges using mobile piezoelectric transducers is proposed herein. Several sensing points carrying separated damage scattering signals were picked out from the scanning paths. By removing the direct and boundary reflected signals, the damage signals were extracted and exported to a delay-and-sum imaging method to locate the damage. Two experiments with and without mobile transducers were conducted to validate the proposed method on an aluminum plate with artificially fabricated crack-like damage. The results show that the proposed baseline-free approach can locate the crack-like damage with high accuracy and efficiency and avoid potential loss of damage information. The proposed baseline-free method provides a novel and practical damage detection approach when considering the angular-dependent scattering characteristic of Lamb waves and can enhance the credibility of results in damage detection.

Damage identification of tube bundles with crack subjected to cross-flow and loose support

Dynamic characteristics of tube bundles with crack subjected to cross-flow and nonlinear loose support are very complicated, making the damage identification more difficult, and the information of healthy tube bundles could not be used in the damage identification process. In this paper, a baseline-free damage detection method is proposed to detect the crack damage of tube bundles subjected to cross-flow and loose support. Two damage indexes, based on the root mean square value of structural vibration responses and the gapped smoothing method, are proposed to identify the damage location and damage extent. Cases with different damage locations and damage extents are considered. The influences of the flow pitch velocity, loose support and the number of measure points on the effectiveness of the method are also discussed. The results showed that the index based on the normalized values of root mean square displacement and velocity responses can identify the damage location accurately within the flow pitch velocity range considered in this study. An improved index based on the normalized values of root mean square displacement and velocity responses and a parameter reflecting damage extent can identify the damage extent when the flow pitch velocity is small. When the flow pitch velocity is large, the effectiveness of the improved index is affected. Meanwhile the loose support location also has an influence on the proposed method, especially when the flow pitch velocity is large. Number of measure points has little influence when the damage extent is larger than 5%.

A baseline-free damage detection method using VBI incomplete measurement data

A novel baseline-free method for damage detection of vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) systems is proposed. The proposed method is physics-based, in contrast to many prevailing approaches, which are purely data-based techniques. It uses incomplete measurement data by incorporating the static condensation transformation matrix into the equations to obtain the final formulas. However, the static condensation of the damaged beam is not known a priori. Therefore, it is shown analytically that the static condensation transformation matrix of the undamaged beam can be used instead of the one corresponding to the damaged beam. This has been confirmed through numerical simulations for different boundary conditions of the beam. Various factors are studied numerically in order to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed method, including road roughness, boundary conditions, variable moving mass velocity and measurement noise. The results demonstrate the capability of the proposed method in damage detection of beam-type structures subjected to a moving mass in the presence of 5% noise. It has also been shown that averaging the results obtained from noisy data collected through several repetitions of the experiment can improve the final prediction of the location and severity of damage.

Baseline-free damage detection in composite plates using edge-reflected Lamb waves

This paper presents a baseline-free damage detection method which leverages the multipath reflected Lamb waves for structural prognosis. From the viewpoint of ray tracing, the reflection of a propagating wave at a free edge is considered as a virtual transducer sitting at the mirrored location of the actual one, injecting excitation into the structure, or recording Lamb waves traveling from the source. These extra echoes arise waves that inspect the structure from different directions, which is equivalent to adding sensing paths into the sensor network. On this basis, the reciprocity breaking effects of each sensing path is quantitatively evaluated by measuring the waveform differences of the associated wave packets in the two response signals that recorded before and after the transmitter and receiver exchange their roles. Note that the indirect sensing paths related to edge reflections consist of several segments. The probabilistic imaging method is modified to accommodate both direct and indirect paths. The proposed multipath Lamb wave imaging algorithm is validated using an experiment conducted on a composite plate with simulated damages. The results demonstrate its availability and effectiveness, i.e., damage detection and localization is achieved using a single transmitter–receiver pair.

Accurate baseline-free damage localization in plates using refined Lamb wave time-reversal method

In a recent study, Agrahari and Kapuria (J Int Mater Sys Struct, 27, 1283–1305, 2016) presented a Lamb wave based refined time reversal method (RTRM) for baseline-free damage detection in thin plate structures. In this method, it was proposed to conduct the probe at the frequency of best reconstruction and to use an extended wave packet ranging between two side bands accompanying the main mode of the reconstructed signal for computing the damage index. The method showed excellent sensitivity to damage in a single actuator-sensor path scenario. In the present work, the RTRM is integrated with a damage imaging algorithm called the reconstruction algorithm for probabilistic inspection of defects (RAPID) to develop an accurate baseline-free damage localization technique using a network of piezoelectric wafer patch transducers. Its performance is tested experimentally in an aluminium plate with a block mass damage. It is found that the proposed RTRM conducted at the best reconstruction frequency of the sensor network-plate system is able to predict the damage location with very good accuracy, whereas the other existing baseline-free methods such as the conventional TRM with single mode tuning and the reciprocity principle based method are either ineffective in localizing or give highly erroneous prediction of the damage location.

Multi-scale gapped smoothing algorithm for robust baseline-free damage detection in optical infrared thermography

Flash thermography is a promising technique to perform rapid non-destructive testing of composite materials. However, it is well known that several difficulties are inherently paired with this approach, such as non-uniform heating, measurement noise and lateral heat diffusion effects. Hence, advanced signal-processing techniques are indispensable in order to analyze the recorded dataset. One such processing technique is Gapped Smoothing Algorithm, which predicts a gapped pixel's value in its sound state from a measurement in the defected state by evaluating only its neighboring pixels. However, the standard Gapped Smoothing Algorithm uses a fixed spatial gap size, which induces issues to detect variable defect sizes in a noisy dataset.In this paper, a Multi-Scale Gapped Smoothing Algorithm (MSGSA) is introduced as a baseline-free image processing technique and an extension to the standard Gapped Smoothing Algorithm. The MSGSA makes use of the evaluation of a wide range of spatial gap sizes so that defects of highly different dimensions are identified. Moreover, it is shown that a weighted combination of all assessed spatial gap sizes significantly improves the detectability of defects and results in an (almost) zero-reference background. The technique thus effectively suppresses the measurement noise and excitation non-uniformity. The efficiency of the MSGSA technique is evaluated and confirmed through numerical simulation and an experimental procedure of flash thermography on carbon fiber reinforced polymers with various defect sizes.

An enhanced Lamb wave virtual time reversal technique for damage detection with transducer transfer function compensation

The Lamb wave time reversal method has widely been investigated as a baseline-free damage detection technique for structural health monitoring. Due to the mode tuning effects from the transducer-wave interactions, even for a pristine wave path, the reconstructed signal waveform may differ much from the original excitation waveform. Consequently, it becomes difficult to distinguish the differences between undamaged and damaged wave paths. This article presents an enhanced Lamb wave virtual time reversal (VTR) algorithm with transducer transfer function compensation to eliminate the transducer influence for dispersive, multimodal Lamb waves. This VTR procedure builds upon a complete 2D analytical model for Lamb wave generation, propagation, and reception. The analytical solution shows that, with the transducer transfer function compensation, a perfect reconstruction of the original excitation waveform can be achieved for both symmetric and antisymmetric Lamb modes. In addition, finite element modeling and experimental validations are further performed to verify the enhanced time reversal procedure. Finally, a time reversal tomography experiment is conducted with a piezoelectric transducer array for structural damage imaging. The enhanced VTR method can achieve more accurate and robust damage imaging results. The paper finishes with discussion, concluding remarks, and suggestions for future work.

A baseline-free damage detection approach based on distance compensation of guided waves

The baseline signal in structural inspection based on guided waves is difficult to be obtained under varying environmental conditions. To guarantee the precision of damage identification, developin...

An improved instantaneous baseline method for pipe structures based on distance compensation using guided waves

Among the baseline-free damage detection techniques based on guided waves (GWs), instantaneous baseline measurement is easily applied in practical situations. However, the number of transducers increases when large structures are inspected, and the operation becomes quite complicated because the excitation signal has to be applied to the actuators one by one. In this paper, an improved instantaneous baseline technique based on distance compensation is proposed. This technique has two advantages: (1) a smaller number of transducers is required; and (2) the operation of the excitation and receiving of GW signals is very simple. A distance compensation algorithm is developed to predict the signals in intact pipe. The efficiency of the wave prediction in intact pipe is validated through simulation. A baseline-free damage detection method for the pipe structure is proposed in this paper. The feasibility of the presented method is demonstrated by the simulation of two damage cases. Moreover, experiments are performed to verify the wave propagation and the feasibility of the proposed method.

Lamb waves and electro-mechanical impedance based damage detection using a mobile PZT transducer set

Lamb waves and electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) based methods are increasingly used in damage detection owing to their high sensitivity to small structural defects. Lamb wave based methods are effective in detecting damages in a large area and electro-impedance based methods are suitable for characterizing the identified damage. Based on these two methods, a novel combined damage detection method is presented in this research. To achieve this, first, a mobile transducer set is developed, which can be used for both the Lamb waves and EMI based methods. Then, a baseline-free damage detection strategy that combines the Lamb waves and EMI methods is presented. Finally, a laboratory-sized test piece is used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results achieved with the application of the presented combined method for characterizing an L-shape crack in an aluminum plate show better location accuracy and detection efficiency than those obtained by applying only one method.

Baseline-free damage detection in composite plates based on the reciprocity principle

Lamb wave based damage detection techniques have been widely used in composite structures. In particular, these techniques usually rely on reference signals, which are significantly influenced by the operational and environmental conditions. To solve this issue, this paper presents a baseline-free damage inspection method based on the reciprocity principle. If a localized nonlinear scatterer exists along the wave path, the reciprocity breaks down. Through estimating the loss of reciprocity, the delamination could be detected. A reciprocity index (RI), which compares the discrepancy between the signal received in transducer B when emitting from transducer A and the signal received in A when the same source is located in B, is established to quantitatively analyze the reciprocity. Experimental results show that the RI value of a damaged path is much higher than that of a healthy path. In addition, the effects of the parameters of excitation signal (i.e., central frequency and bandwidth) and the position of delamination on the RI value are discussed. Furthermore, a RI based probabilistic imaging algorithm is proposed for detecting delamination damage of composite plates without reference signals. Finally, the effectiveness of this baseline-free damage detection method is validated by an experimental example.

Active detection of block mass and notch-type damages in metallic plates using a refined time-reversed Lamb wave technique

A recently proposed refined time-reversed Lamb wave method for baseline-free damage detection is tested experimentally for detecting block mass and notch-type damages in isotropic plates. The experimental results were compared with finite element simulations. The frequency of best reconstruction has been determined experimentally for the actuator–plate–sensor system by performing the time reversal process for a range of frequency, which is found to be very different from the sweet spot frequency exciting a single mode, hitherto recommended for improving the performance of the time reversal process-based techniques. It is shown that the damage indices (DIs) computed by using the conventional main wave packet of the reconstructed signal are less sensitive to the presence of damage, which is consistent with some recently reported experimental results by other groups. The present method with extended wave packet shows excellent sensitivity to damage for both block mass and notch-type damages and also ensures a low threshold for the undamaged case when used at the best reconstruction frequency. The refined DIs reflect the true severity of damage. It was observed that a putty on the plate has no significant change in the DIs in the present method, whereas a baseline method would identify it as a damage due to very significant scattering by the putty.

Backward wave separation method in a single transmitter and multi-receiver sensor array for improved damage identification of two-dimensional structures

In this paper, a backward wave separation method is proposed. Since the first backward wave can be considered as the damage reflection, the damage reflected wave peaks are artificially amplified by appropriately shifting and summing signals collected from a series of sensing points aligned along the wave propagating direction. This shifting and summing process aims to present the damage reflected wave peaks more distinctively while offsets randomly distributed environmental interferences. Due to the high signal-to-noise ratio of the treated signal, the application of backward wave separation is able to attain baseline-free damage detection. A circular single transmitter and multi-receiver sensor array is then deployed on a metal plate to identify the crack-like damage. Signals collected by the sensor array with and without the treatment of the backward wave separation method are, respectively, imported to the delay-and-sum imaging algorithm to yield individual damage contours. The comparisons between these contours demonstrate that the backward wave separation method is able to significantly improve the damage identification performance of the sensor array with respect to the damage localization accuracy, noise immunity, and damage sensitivity. Both the finite element modeling and laser measurement are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed backward wave separation method.