Observing Dynamic Deformation of Masonry Wall in Vibration through Digital Photography and Kalman Filter

Abstract

Abstract Masonry structure is one of the common engineering structures, they encounter brittle fractures and even collapse in earthquakes, posing a major threat to the safety of human beings and property. This drives a need to monitor their dynamic deformation during earthquakes and study the seismic performance of masonry structure. This paper uses digital photography to monitor dynamic deformation of masonry structure in vibration. Kalman filter is used to eliminate the random noise and filter the change value of the pixel. Finally, the filtered value is converted into the actual displacement value by the time baseline parallax method. Results show that the relative measurement accuracy is 2.13‰ after using kalman filter to process deformation data. In the early vibration stage, masonry structure develops less deformation and it is in elastic state. The deformation of masonry structures increase gradually with the vibration being stronger. Digital photography can monitor the dynamic deformation of masonry structure in real time and grasp its health status. It can provide technical and data support for studying seismic performance of masonry structure.