Damage Detection in Composite beam using Wavelet Transform

R. Prakash 1,*, D. Johnson1, D. Mariappan2, and S. M. Srinivasan1

1

Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, INDIA. 2 TechPassion Technologies Pvt Limited, Chennai, INDIA.
*

Email: rprakashiitm@gmail.com

Introduction Wavelet transform (WT) analysis is a mathematical tool which has been widely used for structural damage detection applications in many industries like mechanical, aerospace, civil structures etc. Advantage of WT is that it breaks down a signal into a series of local basis functions on the space / time axis and allows the identification of local features of a signal from the scale and position of the wavelets. A wavelet based structural damage identified by variation of wavelet coefficients with known excitation has been studied earlier [1] and the abnormality analysis of mode shapes in damage detection with a relatively high signal to noise ratio explained [2]. It is difficult to introduce a known excitation in a practical situation. Therefore, damage detection tools would require a methodology by which it is possible to detect damage without having to impart a known excitation. In this study, an innovative approach is attempted in the form of WT being used to detect damage of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) cantilever type beam using the ambient excitation. By using wavelet filter passed through the obtained response signal, it is possible to obtain the wavelet coefficients pertaining a particular structure. The difference in the wavelet coefficient between the healthy and damaged specimen is used as an indicator of damage at the appropriate location. It is also possible to size the damage using this technique. A photograph of the experimental set-up is shown in Figure 1. The response signals are recorded over a short duration from accelerometers at various positions along length of a GFRP healthy and a specimen with a predefined damage. Wavelet error coefficients obtained from different sensors positions show that significant peak is attained at the defect location (see Figure 2). In the ongoing study, different methods that currently exist in literature are compared with the method proposed above to assess the effectiveness the proposed damage diagnostic tool with the existing ones. The results of the same will be presented at the time of the conference. Also, parameters such as positions of the sensors and size and location of damage will be varied in the experimental study to validate the tool. References [1] N.S.Bajaba, K.A.Alnefaie, Emirates J.Engg Research. 10 (2005) 35. [2] C.Maosen and Q.Pizhong, Smart Mater. Struct. 17 (2008) 1.

Figure.1 Photographic view of Experimental Setup

Figure.2 Wavelet Error Coefficients at three sensor locations