Damage monitoring in sandwich beams by modal parameter shifts: a comparative study of burst random and sine dwell vibration testing

This paper presents an experimental study on the effects of multi-site damage on the vibration response of honeycomb sandwich beams, damaged by two different ways i.e., impact damage and core-only damage simulating damage due to bird or stone impact or due to mishandling during assembly and maintenance. The variation of the modal parameters with different levels of impact energy and density of damage is studied. Vibration tests have been carried out with both burst random and sine dwell testing in order to evaluate the damping estimation efficiency of these methods in the presence of damage. Sine dwell testing is done in both up and down frequency directions in order to detect structural non-linearities. Results show that damping ratio is a more sensitive parameter for damage detection than the natural frequency. Design of experiments (DOE) highlighted density of damage as the factor having a more significant effect on the modal parameters and also proved that sine dwell testing is more suitable for damping estimation in the presence of damage as compared to burst random testing

Autonomous frequency domain identification: Theory and experiment

The analysis, design, and on-orbit tuning of robust controllers require more information about the plant than simply a nominal estimate of the plant transfer function. Information is also required concerning the uncertainty in the nominal estimate, or more generally, the identification of a model set within which the true plant is known to lie. The identification methodology that was developed and experimentally demonstrated makes use of a simple but useful characterization of the model uncertainty based on the output error. This is a characterization of the additive uncertainty in the plant model, which has found considerable use in many robust control analysis and synthesis techniques. The identification process is initiated by a stochastic input u which is applied to the plant p giving rise to the output. Spectral estimation (h = P sub uy/P sub uu) is used as an estimate of p and the model order is estimated using the produce moment matrix (PMM) method. A parametric model unit direction vector p is then determined by curve fitting the spectral estimate to a rational transfer function. The additive uncertainty delta sub m = p - unit direction vector p is then estimated by the cross spectral estimate delta = P sub ue/P sub uu where e = y - unit direction vectory y is the output error, and unit direction vector y = unit direction vector pu is the computed output of the parametric model subjected to the actual input u. The experimental results demonstrate the curve fitting algorithm produces the reduced-order plant model which minimizes the additive uncertainty. The nominal transfer function estimate unit direction vector p and the estimate delta of the additive uncertainty delta sub m are subsequently available to be used for optimization of robust controller performance and stability

Universal direct tuner for loop control in industry

This paper introduces a direct universal (automatic) tuner for basic loop control in industrial applications. The direct feature refers to the fact that a first-hand model, such as a step response first-order plus dead time approximation, is not required. Instead, a point in the frequency domain and the corresponding slope of the loop frequency response is identified by single test suitable for industrial applications. The proposed method has been shown to overcome pitfalls found in other (automatic) tuning methods and has been validated in a wide range of common and exotic processes in simulation and experimental conditions. The method is very robust to noise, an important feature for real life industrial applications. Comparison is performed with other well-known methods, such as approximate M-constrained integral gain optimization (AMIGO) and Skogestad internal model controller (SIMC), which are indirect methods, i.e., they are based on a first-hand approximation of step response data. The results indicate great similarity between the results, whereas the direct method has the advantage of skipping this intermediate step of identification. The control structure is the most commonly used in industry, i.e., proportional-integral-derivative (PID) type. As the derivative action is often not used in industry due to its difficult choice, in the proposed method, we use a direct relation between the integral and derivative gains. This enables the user to have in the tuning structure the advantages of the derivative action, therefore much improving the potential of good performance in real life control applications

Harmonic-Balance-Based parameter estimation of nonlinear structures in the presence of Multi-Harmonic response and force

Testing nonlinear structures to characterise their internal nonlinear forces is challenging. Often nonlinear structures are excited by harmonic forces and yield a multi-harmonic response. In many systems, particularly ones with strong nonlinearities, the effect of higher harmonics in the force and responses cannot be ignored. Even if the intended excitation is a single frequency sinusoidal force, the interaction of the shaker and the nonlinear structure can lead to harmonics in the applied force. The effects of these higher harmonics of the input force on nonlinear model identification in structural dynamics are often neglected. The objective of this study is to introduce an identification method, motivated by the alternating frequency/time approach using harmonic balance (AFTHB), which is able to consider both multi-harmonic forces and multi-harmonic responses of the system. The proposed AFTHB method can include all significant harmonics by selecting an appropriate time step and sampling frequency to guarantee the accuracy of the results. An analytical harmonic-balance-based (AHB) approach is also considered for comparison. However, the inclusion of all significant harmonics of the response in the analytical expansion of the nonlinear functions is often cumbersome. Furthermore, the AFTHB method can easily cope with complex nonlinearities such as Coulomb friction and with multi-degree of freedom nonlinear systems. Including the effect of higher harmonics in the identification process reduces the approximation error due to truncation and very accurate approximation of the balanced equations of each harmonic is obtained. The proposed identification method requires prior knowledge or an appropriate estimation of the type of system nonlinearities. However, the method of model selection may be used for a set of candidate models, and avoiding a dictionary of arbitrary candidate basis functions significantly reduces the computational costs. This paper highlights the important features of the AFTHB method to ensure accurate estimation using four simulated and two experimental examples. The effects of the number of harmonics considered, the modelling error, measurement noise and the frequency range on the quality of the estimated model are demonstrated

A Comprehensive Framework for White-Box Damage Detection in Structural Systems Based on Extended Constitutive Relation Error Method

Early detection of the deterioration and degradation in civil infrastructure is critical for structural engineers and infrastructure managers to develop rehabilitation and maintenance plans. In the field of structural health monitoring, numerous techniques have been developed to detect and localize damage by examining changes in measured vibration response. Among vibration-based damage detection techniques, model-based approach has been widely used as its damage detection process incorporates the geometric configuration, physical properties, and behavioral characteristics of the structural system. However, the model-based approaches depend on a model calibration procedure that is based only on the outputs of numerical models without explicitly taking the knowledge regarding the mechanistic behavior of the system into account. Moreover, due to the limitation of measurement degrees of freedom (DOFs), the number of identified vibration modes are typically far fewer than the number of model variables to be calibrated. Consequently, these model-based damage detection methods frequently suffer from an ill-posed inverse-problem. This dissertation contributes to the field of model-based damage detection by implementing the Extended Constitutive Relation Error (ECRE), a method developed for error localization in finite element models for detecting structural damage. Implementing ECRE for damage detection leads to the localization of elements with high residual energy through the identification of discrepancies between experimental measurements and model predictions due to damage. The ECRE-based damage detection technique incorporates the underlying physics of the problem in a tangible and visible manner, and thus leading to more reliable solutions in the damage detection and localization process. This dissertation applies the ECRE-based damage detection in the context of both linear and nonlinear dynamical systems. In particular, the dissertation integrates the Multi-harmonic balance method with ECRE to accurate identify the modeling errors of locally nonlinear dynamical systems. This approach has a potential to be applied for damage detection in the nonlinear structural system, as well as to be used as a damage prognosis tool for the estimation of structural system\u27s remaining useful life

Correlating low energy impact damage with changes in modal parameters: diagnosis tools and FE validation

This paper presents a basic experimental technique and simplified FE based models for the detection, localization and quantification of impact damage in composite beams around the BVID level. Detection of damage is carried out by shift in modal parameters. Localization of damage is done by a topology optimization tool which showed that correct damage locations can be found rather efficiently for low-level damage. The novelty of this paper is that we develop an All In One (AIO) package dedicated to impact identification by modal analysis. The damaged zones in the FE models are updated by reducing the most sensitive material property in order to improve the experimental/numerical correlation of the frequency response functions. These approximate damage models(in term of equivalent rigidity) give us a simple degradation factor that can serve as a warning regarding structure safety

Real-time flutter identification

The techniques and a FORTRAN 77 MOdal Parameter IDentification (MOPID) computer program developed for identification of the frequencies and damping ratios of multiple flutter modes in real time are documented. Physically meaningful model parameterization was combined with state of the art recursive identification techniques and applied to the problem of real time flutter mode monitoring. The performance of the algorithm in terms of convergence speed and parameter estimation error is demonstrated for several simulated data cases, and the results of actual flight data analysis from two different vehicles are presented. It is indicated that the algorithm is capable of real time monitoring of aircraft flutter characteristics with a high degree of reliability