Experimental validation of a structural damage detection method based on Marginal Hilbert Spectrum

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) using dynamic characteristics of structures is crucial for early damage detection. Damage detection can be performed by capturing and assessing structural responses. Instrumented structures are monitored by analyzing the responses recorded by deployed sensors in the form of signals. Signal processing is an important tool for the processing of the collected data to diagnose anomalies in structural behavior. The vibration signature of the structure varies with damage. In order to attain effective damage detection, preservation of non-linear and non-stationary features of real structural responses is important. Decomposition of the signals into Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF) by Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and application of Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT) addresses the time-varying instantaneous properties of the structural response. The energy distribution among different vibration modes of the intact and damaged structure depicted by Marginal Hilbert Spectrum (MHS) detects location and severity of the damage. The present work investigates damage detection analytically and experimentally by employing MHS. The testing of this methodology for different damage scenarios of a frame structure resulted in its accurate damage identification. The sensitivity of Hilbert Spectral Analysis (HSA) is assessed with varying frequencies and damage locations by means of calculating Damage Indices (DI) from the Hilbert spectrum curves of the undamaged and damaged structures.