Wavelet-based structural health monitoring of earthquake excited structures

The article presents a wavelet-based structural health monitoring technique for structures subjected to an earthquake excitation utilizing the instantaneous modal information. The instantaneous mode shape information is first extracted from the vibration response data collected during an earthquake event by using a wavelet packet sifting process. A confidence index (CI) is proposed to validate the results obtained. The identified normalized instantaneous mode shapes in conjunction with the corresponding CIs can be effectively used to monitor damage development in the structure. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated for two damage scenarios, sudden stiffness loss and progressive stiffness degradation, and different base excitations including three real earthquake signals and a random signal. Consistently good results were obtained in all cases. Issues related to robustness of the method in the presence of a measurement noise and sensitivity to damage severity are discussed.