Structural damage detection of reinforced concrete shear walls subject to consequent earthquakes

Structural health monitoring is a procedure to provide accurate and immediate information on the condition and efficiency of structures. There is a variety of damage factors and the unpredictability of future damage, is essential for the application of structural health monitoring. Structural health monitoring and damage detection in early stages is one of the most fascinating topics that had been paid attention because the majority of damages can be repaired and reformed by initial evaluation, consequently the spread of damage to the structures, building collapse and rising of costs can be prevented. Detection of concrete shear wall damages are designed to withstand the lateral load on the structure is critical. Since failures and malfunctions of shear walls can lead to serious damage or even progressive dilapidation of concrete structures, any change in stiffness and frequency can clearly demonstrate the occurrence of the damage. In this article, with non-linear time history analysis, the finite element model of structures with concrete shear walls subject to four earthquakes have been extracted and applying Fourier and wavelet transform, the damage of shear walls is detected. The results of displacement, base shear and hysteresis curves for experimental and numerical programs indicate a good agreement which guarantee the precision of the damage detection procedure.