Structural Health Monitoring of Multi-Storey Frame Structures using Piezoelectric Incompatibility Filters: Theory and Numerical Verification

In the present paper, we develop a novel method for structural health monitoring of multistorey frame structures with the capability to detect and localise local damage. The method uses so-called spatial incompatibility filters, which are continuously distributed strain-type sensors only sensitive to incompatibilities. In the first part of the paper the concept of incompatibility filters is introduced for multi-storey frame structures and it is shown how these filters can be used to detect and localise local cracks in frame structures. In the second part of the paper we study the use of incompatibility filters put into practice by piezoelectric sensor networks for structural health monitoring of a threestorey frame structure. The design of the piezoelectric sensor network is based on an analytical analysis of the frame structure within the framework of the method developed in the first part of the paper and a numerical verification using three-dimensional Finite Elements completes the paper.