Maciej Radzienski

Damage detection strategies based on propagation of guided elastic waves

This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of certain structural health monitoring (SHM) strategies based on propagation of guided elastic waves within thin-walled shell structures. This is realized based on results of numerical and experimental investigations obtained by the use of the spectral finite element method (SFEM) together with laser scanning vibrometry (LSV) and subsequent application of two different integral-based indices for damage quantification, these being the integral mean value (IMV) and the root mean square (RMS). Numerical tests by SFEM were carried out for a square plate with through-hole damage, a cracked fuselage section with two stiffeners and a cracked wing section skin, all made out of aluminium. Experimental measurements by LSV included tests on a square aluminium plate, composite plate and a composite stabilizer of a PZL W-3A helicopter, all with simulated damage. During numerical and experimental investigations damage sensitivity of both IMV and RMS indices was tested by considering various displacement components, signal timescales or weighting factors. A certain practical method for quick construction of RMS damage maps based on experimental measurements by LSV was also presented.

Damage detection in plates using two-dimensional directional Gaussian wavelets and laser scanned operating deflection shapes

Mode shape analysis by wavelet transform has been used effectively for vibration-based damage detection in plates. As an extension of previous studies, this study focuses on an improved method for damage detection in plates: scrutiny of operating deflection shapes by two-dimensional directional Gaussian wavelet transforms. With this method, the proposed two-dimensional directional Gaussian wavelet can characterize directional information about damage; moreover, the operating deflection shapes can be used to address the real-time dynamic characteristics of a plate. To identify damage, the local surface of the plate is scanned using a scanning laser vibrometer to generate the local operating deflection shape, which is interrogated by two-dimensional directional Gaussian wavelets for damage. The feasibility of the method is numerically demonstrated using a low-magnitude operating deflection shape of a two-sided clamped plate, incorporating white noise with signal-to-noise ratio of 40 dB. The applicability of the method is then experimentally validated by detecting a cross-like notch in a suspended aluminum plate with the operating deflection shapes measured by a scanning laser vibrometer. Numerical and experimental results show that the method is capable of revealing directional features of small damage with high precision and strong robustness against noise. It appears that this damage detection method is related only to the spatially distributed measurement of vibrational responses in local critical regions of the plate. With this local property, the method requires no numerical or physical benchmark models for the entire structure in question nor any prior knowledge of either the material properties or the boundary conditions of the structure. (The Matlab code performing directional Gaussian wavelet transform can be provided by the corresponding author as per request.)

Application of RMS for damage detection by guided elastic waves

This paper presents certain results of an experimental study related with a damage detection in structural elements based on deviations in guided elastic wave propagation patterns. In order to excite guided elastic waves within specimens tested piezoelectric transducers have been applied. As excitation signals 5 sine cycles modulated by Hanning window have been used. Propagation of guided elastic waves has been monitored by a scanning Doppler laser vibrometer. The time signals recorded during measurement have been utilised to calculate the values of RMS. It has turned out that the values of RMS differed significantly in damaged areas from the values calculated for the healthy ones. In this way it has become possible to pinpoint precisely the locations of damage over the entire measured surface. All experimental investigations have been carried out for thin aluminium or composite plates. Damage has been simulated by a small additional mass attached on the plate surface or by a narrow notch cut. It has been shown that proposed method allows one to localise damage of various shapes and sizes within structural elements over the whole area under investigation.

Vibrational damage detection using fractal surface singularities with noncontact laser measurement

This study concerns damage detection in plate-type structures using fractal surface singularities with noncontact laser measurement of structural dynamic responses. The fractal dimension analysis aided by linear isomorphism is used to deal with mode shapes for a plate with damage. With this method, the linear isomorphism is utilized to remove the local extrema while preserving the damage information of a mode shape, giving a retrofitted mode shape. The retrofitted mode shape is processed by Katz’s fractal dimension analysis to produce a fractal dimension surface with its singular peak indicating the presence and location of the damage. In the method, a series of high-resolution mode shapes of the plate are used, which are acquired by using a noncontact measurement system consisting of a piezoceramic transducer as the actuator and a scanning laser vibrometer as the sensor. The capability of the method to locate and quantify damage is numerically demonstrated using a two-side-clamped aluminum plate with cracks of various depths; the efficacy of the method in identifying complex cracks is experimentally validated using a suspended aluminum plate bearing a cross-like crack. The numerical and experimental results show that the proposed method can accurately identify complex damage in plates, requiring neither benchmark models for the entire structure under investigation, or any prior knowledge of the material properties and the boundary conditions of the structure.

Experimental Observation of a Large Low-Frequency Band Gap in a Polymer Waveguide

The quest for large and low frequency band gaps is one of the principal objectives pursued in a number of engineering applications, ranging from noise absorption to vibration control, to seismic wave abatement. For this purpose, a plethora of complex architectures (including multi-phase materials) and multi-physics approaches have been proposed in the past, often involving difficulties in their practical realization. To address this issue, in this work we propose an easy-to-manufacture design able to open large, low frequency complete Lamb band gaps exploiting a suitable arrangement of masses and stiffnesses produced by cavities in a monolithic material. The performance of the designed structure is evaluated by numerical simulations and confirmed by Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer (SLDV) measurements on an isotropic polyvinyl chloride plate in which a square ring region of cross-like cavities is fabricated. The full wave field reconstruction clearly confirms the ability of even a limited number of unit cell rows of the proposed design to efficiently attenuate Lamb waves. In addition, numerical simulations show that the structure allows to shift of the central frequency of the BG through geometrical modifications. The design may be of interest for applications in which large BGs at low frequencies are required.

Non-baseline identification of delamination in plates using wavelet-aided fractal analysis of two-dimensional mode shapes

Delamination is a typical form of damage in composite plates. Identification of delamination in plates has been a focus of increasing research interest in relatively recent years. This study develops a new approach, termed a scale waveform dimension analysis of two-dimensional mode shapes, to identify delamination in composite plates. The scale waveform dimension analysis comprises two components: decomposition of a mode shape into scale mode shapes and waveform dimension analysis of scale mode shapes. The first component acts as a splitter that broadly splits a noisy mode shape into three sets of trend-, noise-, and damage-scale mode shapes, from which the damage scale mode shapes can be selected for use in damage characterization; the second component functions as a detector to detect abnormalities of damage scale mode shapes, to indicate the presence and location of delamination. The efficacy of the method is numerically studied and experimentally examined using composite plates containing small delamination. The results show that the proposed method can identify delamination with great accuracy in noisy conditions, needing no intact baseline mode shapes nor any prior knowledge of either the material properties or boundary conditions of the plate being inspected.

Damage visualization enhancement by the wave field filtering and processing

The aim of this paper is to present methods for enhancing damage visualization in structures based on wave propagation phenomenon. The method utilizes filtering and processing of full wavefield acquired by the laser vibrometer. Laser vibrometer allows to register full wavefield in elements of a structure instead of single point measurements acquired by e.g. piezoelectric sensor. In this way new possibilities for Nondestructive Evaluation arise enabling visualization of elastic waves interacting with various types of damages. Measurements obtained with a scanning laser vibrometer can be combined with effective signal and imaging processing algorithms to support damage identification. In this paper new method for wave filtering of propagating waves is tested on both numerical results and experimental data obtained from laser vibrometry measurements of composite plates. Processing of signals registered at a rectangular grid of measurement points covering inspected area of the plate involve 2D DFFT (Discrete Fast Fourier Transform), wavenumber filtering and inverse DFFT. As a result new damage index is proposed and compared with other methods like RMS and frequency-wavenumber filtering.

Experimental analysis and prediction of antisymmetric wave motion in a tapered anisotropic waveguide.

This paper presents experimental results for wave propagation in an anisotropic multilayered structure with linearly varying cross section. Knowing the dispersion and wave propagation properties in such a structure is of great importance for non-destructive material testing and structural health monitoring applications for accurate damage detection and localization. In the proposed study, the wavefield is generated by a circular piezoelectric wafer active sensor and measured by a scanning laser-Doppler-vibrometer. The measurements are compared with a theoretical group delay estimation and a signal prediction for the antisymmetric wave motion along the non-uniform propagation path. The required dispersion curves are derived from the well-known global matrix method for segments of constant thickness. A multidimensional frequency-wavenumber analysis of linescan data and the full wavefield provides further insight of the adiabatic wave motion because the wavenumber changes along the tapered geometry of the waveguide. In addition, it is demonstrated that a terahertz time-domain system can be used in glass-fiber reinforced plastic structures as a tool to estimate the thickness profile of thin structures by means of time-of-flight measurements. This information is particularly important for guided wave-based diagnostics of structures with unknown thickness.

Spectral element method implementation on GPU for Lamb wave simulation

Parallel implementation of the time domain spectral element method on GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is presented. The proposed spectral element method implementation is based on sparse matrix storage of local shape function derivatives calculated at Gauss–Lobatto–Legendre points. The algorithm utilizes two basic operations: multiplication of sparse matrix by vector and element-by-element vectors multiplication. Parallel processing is performed on the degree of freedom level. The assembly of resultant force is done by the aid of a mesh coloring algorithm. The implementation enables considerable computation speedup as well as a simulation of complex structural health monitoring systems based on anomalies of propagating Lamb waves. Hence, the complexity of various models can be tested and compared in order to be as close to reality as possible by using modern computers. A comparative example of a composite laminate modeling by using homogenization of material properties in one layer of 3D brick spectral elements with composite in which each ply is simulated by separate layer of 3D brick spectral elements is described. Consequences of application of each technique are explained. Further analysis is performed for composite laminate with delamination. In each case piezoelectric transducer as well as glue layer between actuator and host structure is modeled.

Crack Identification in CFRP Laminated Beams Using Multi-Resolution Modal Teager–Kaiser Energy under Noisy Environments

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminates are increasingly used in the aerospace and civil engineering fields. Identifying cracks in carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminated beam components is of considerable significance for ensuring the integrity and safety of the whole structures. With the development of high-resolution measurement technologies, mode-shape-based crack identification in such laminated beam components has become an active research focus. Despite its sensitivity to cracks, however, this method is susceptible to noise. To address this deficiency, this study proposes a new concept of multi-resolution modal Teager–Kaiser energy, which is the Teager–Kaiser energy of a mode shape represented in multi-resolution, for identifying cracks in carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminated beams. The efficacy of this concept is analytically demonstrated by identifying cracks in Timoshenko beams with general boundary conditions; and its applicability is validated by diagnosing cracks in a carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminated beam, whose mode shapes are precisely acquired via non-contact measurement using a scanning laser vibrometer. The analytical and experimental results show that multi-resolution modal Teager–Kaiser energy is capable of designating the presence and location of cracks in these beams under noisy environments. This proposed method holds promise for developing crack identification systems for carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminates.