Wavelet Transform Modulus Maxima Decay Lines

Abstract

An important task in structural health monitoring (SHM) is that of damage detection under varying environmental and operational conditions. Structures, under varying environmental conditions, change their mass, elasticity and damping properties whereas changing operational conditions cause changes to excitations. A damage detection methodology implemented in these circumstances faces serious challenges since changes to structural behaviour imparted by environmental or operational conditions could be wrongly attributed to damage. The part of a damage detection decision algorithm that removes environmental and operational effects is called normalization. In this chapter a normalization methodology that is based on the similarity between continuous wavelet transform maxima decay lines is presented. This methodology is implemented on both simulated and experimental data. Simulated data were obtained from a three degree of freedom system. Varying environmental conditions were simulated by temperature dependent stiffness parameters and operating conditions by changing the colour of random excitation. Experimental data were obtained from damaged cantilever beams that were subjected to random excitations of different colour and varying temperatures.