Damage estimation on beam-like structures using the multi-resolution analysis

This work proposes a vibration-based damage evaluation method that can detect, locate, and size damage utilizing only a few of the lower mode shapes. The proposed method is particularly advantageous for beam-like structures with uncertain applied axial load, mass density, and foundation stiffness. Based on a small damage assumption, a linear relationship between damaged and undamaged curvatures is revealed in the context of elasticity. It turns out that the resulting damage index equation inherently suffers from singularities near inflection nodes. The transformation of the problem into the multi-resolution wavelet domain provides a set of coupled linear equations. With the aid of the singular value decomposition technique, the solution to the damage index equation is achieved in the wavelet space. Next, the desired physical solution to the damage index equation is reconstructed from the one in the wavelet space. The performance of the proposed method is compared with two existing damage detection methods using a set of numerical simulations. The proposed method attempts to resolve the mode selection problem, the singularity problem, the axial force problem, and the absolute severity estimation problem, all of which remained unsolved by earlier attempts.