Two kinds of average approximation accuracy

Rough set theory places great importance on approximation accuracy, which is used to gauge how well a rough set model describes a target concept. However, traditional approximation accuracy has limitations since it varies with changes in the target concept and cannot evaluate the overall descriptive ability of a rough set model. To overcome this, two types of average approximation accuracy that objectively assess a rough set model’s ability to approximate all information granules is proposed. The first is the relative average approximation accuracy, which is based on all sets in the universe and has several basic properties. The second is the absolute average approximation accuracy, which is based on undefinable sets and has yielded significant conclusions. We also explore the relationship between these two types of average approximation accuracy. Finally, the average approximation accuracy has practical applications in addressing missing attribute values in incomplete information tables

Damage detection of concrete piles subject to typical damages using piezoceramic based passive sensing approach

Pile foundations are typically comprised in concealed construction work. In recent years, some major categories of concrete piles subject to typical damages have caused a lot of engineering disasters and accidents. These accidents have been caused by collapse of civil structures resulting in great casualties and economic loss. Therefore, damage detection and real-time health monitoring on foundation piles is an urgent research requirement. In this research, a piezoceramic based passive sensing approach is proposed to detect typical damages types of concrete piles, including partial mud intrusion, secondary concrete pouring interface, circumferential crack, and full mud intrusion. In this passive sensing approach, induced stress waves are generated by the impact hammer on the top surface of a pile and one smart aggregate embedded on the bottom of each pile is used as a sensor to receive the propagating wave signals. These sensors are embedded before pouring concrete. Structural defects affect the natural frequency of the pile. The power spectrum of piles with different types of damage were compared by plotting the sensor signals in frequency domain. The natural frequency decreases with the increase in defect severity. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can detect all four typical damage types in concrete piles

Damage detection of pipeline multiple cracks using piezoceramic transducers

To study the feasibility of detecting pipeline multi-cracks damage using piezoceramic transducers, the electromechanical impedance method and the stress wave based active sensing method were used respectively to perform the damage detection of pipeline with multi-cracks. In this research, the lead zirconate titanate (PZT) type transducers were used due to its strong piezoelectric effect and low cost. During the experiments, two artificial cracks on the pipeline specimen were created, ranging from 0 mm to 9 mm, and seven different operating conditions were generated for each artificial crack. In the monitoring test, for the electromechanical impedance method, the damage index based on Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) was used, and for the active sensing method, the damage index based on Wavelet Packet Energy Loss (WPEL) was used. In addition, the relationship between the crack depth and RMSD as well as the relationship between the crack depth and location and WPEL were analyzed. The results show that RMSD and WPEL indices increase with the increase of the depth of pipeline cracks. In addition, the WPEL index increases with the appearance of new cracks. Quantitative analysis of pipeline crack damage can be realized by electromechanical impedance method, and localization analysis on the pipeline multi-cracks damage can be achieved by stress wave method based on sensor arrays

Damage detection of concrete piles subject to typical damages using piezoceramic based passive sensing approach

Pile foundations are typically comprised in concealed construction work. In recent years, some major categories of concrete piles subject to typical damages have caused a lot of engineering disasters and accidents. These accidents have been caused by collapse of civil structures resulting in great casualties and economic loss. Therefore, damage detection and real-time health monitoring on foundation piles is an urgent research requirement. In this research, a piezoceramic based passive sensing approach is proposed to detect typical damages types of concrete piles, including partial mud intrusion, secondary concrete pouring interface, circumferential crack, and full mud intrusion. In this passive sensing approach, induced stress waves are generated by the impact hammer on the top surface of a pile and one smart aggregate embedded on the bottom of each pile is used as a sensor to receive the propagating wave signals. These sensors are embedded before pouring concrete. Structural defects affect the natural frequency of the pile. The power spectrum of piles with different types of damage were compared by plotting the sensor signals in frequency domain. The natural frequency decreases with the increase in defect severity. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can detect all four typical damage types in concrete piles

Damage detection of concrete piles subject to typical damages using piezoceramic based passive sensing approach

Pile foundations are typically comprised in concealed construction work. In recent years, some major categories of concrete piles subject to typical damages have caused a lot of engineering disasters and accidents. These accidents have been caused by collapse of civil structures resulting in great casualties and economic loss. Therefore, damage detection and real-time health monitoring on foundation piles is an urgent research requirement. In this research, a piezoceramic based passive sensing approach is proposed to detect typical damages types of concrete piles, including partial mud intrusion, secondary concrete pouring interface, circumferential crack, and full mud intrusion. In this passive sensing approach, induced stress waves are generated by the impact hammer on the top surface of a pile and one smart aggregate embedded on the bottom of each pile is used as a sensor to receive the propagating wave signals. These sensors are embedded before pouring concrete. Structural defects affect the natural frequency of the pile. The power spectrum of piles with different types of damage were compared by plotting the sensor signals in frequency domain. The natural frequency decreases with the increase in defect severity. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can detect all four typical damage types in concrete piles

Damage detection of concrete piles subject to typical damages using piezoceramic based passive sensing approach

Pile foundations are typically comprised in concealed construction work. In recent years, some major categories of concrete piles subject to typical damages have caused a lot of engineering disasters and accidents. These accidents have been caused by collapse of civil structures resulting in great casualties and economic loss. Therefore, damage detection and real-time health monitoring on foundation piles is an urgent research requirement. In this research, a piezoceramic based passive sensing approach is proposed to detect typical damages types of concrete piles, including partial mud intrusion, secondary concrete pouring interface, circumferential crack, and full mud intrusion. In this passive sensing approach, induced stress waves are generated by the impact hammer on the top surface of a pile and one smart aggregate embedded on the bottom of each pile is used as a sensor to receive the propagating wave signals. These sensors are embedded before pouring concrete. Structural defects affect the natural frequency of the pile. The power spectrum of piles with different types of damage were compared by plotting the sensor signals in frequency domain. The natural frequency decreases with the increase in defect severity. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can detect all four typical damage types in concrete piles

Real-Time Monitoring of Water Content in Sandy Soil Using Shear Mode Piezoceramic Transducers and Active Sensing—A Feasibility Study

A quantitative understanding of soil water content or soil water status is of great importance to many applications, such as landslide monitoring, rockfill dam health monitoring, precision agriculture, etc. In this paper, a feasibility study was conducted to monitor the soil water content in real time using permanent embedded piezoceramic-based transducers called smart aggregates (SAs). An active sensing approach using a customized swept acoustic wave with a frequency range between 100 Hz and 300 kHz was used to study the wave attenuation in the soil in correlation to soil moisture levels. Two sandy soil specimens, each embedded with a pair of SAs, were made in the laboratory, and the water percentage of the soil specimens was incrementally decreased from 15% to 3% during the tests. Due to the change of the soil water status, the damping property of the soil correspondingly changes. The change of the damping property results in the variation of the acoustic wave attenuation ratios. A wavelet packet-based energy index was adopted to compute the energy of the signal captured by the SA sensor. Experimental results show a parabolic growth curve of the received signal energy vs. the water percentage of the soil. The feasibility, sensitivity, and reliability of the proposed method for in-situ monitoring of soil water status were discussed

Innovation in Piezoceramic Based Structural Health Monitoring

Recent structural failures in both developing and developed countries highlight the importance of structural health monitoring, which has the ability to provide early warning based on real time monitoring of the structure of interest. The versatile functions and low cost of piezoceramic material has demonstrated its capability as transducers in structural health monitoring. This dissertation investigated modeling and innovative applications using piezoceramic based smart aggregate transducers for health monitoring of various structures. A theoretical and experimental modeling study of piezoceramic based smart aggregates were firstly conducted. Fundamental equations of a smart aggregate were established and numerical simulations were performed. The resonance and anti-resonance frequencies of a smart aggregate sample were computed, and were later verified by experimental tests. Many structural failures were initiated by cracks. A chapter of this dissertation is devoted to crack detection using piezoceramic based transducers. Two types of structures, a pipeline and a concrete column, were investigated. For the pipeline structure, an active sensing system with distributed actuators and sensors detects the crack and monitor the crack development. For the concrete column, the cyclic crack open-close condition was determined by embedded smart aggregates using wavelet packet-based structural damage index. Steel plate reinforced concrete structures are increasingly used in civil engineering. However, the bonding between the steel plate and the concrete is not well studied nor well known. This dissertation investigated detection of bond slip between the steel plate and concrete using smart aggregates. With appropriate deployment of smart aggregates in concrete structure and steel plate surface, shear stress induced bond slip phenomenon was monitored in real time. The severity of debonding was also characterized using the proposed method. Concrete structures are often used as underground containment for nuclear materials. Cracks and underground water are a lethal combination to migrate the radioactive pollution. This dissertation proposed an effective active sensing based method to detect concrete cracks and to further detect water presence in these concrete cracks, as experimentally demonstrated. Concrete is the most popular structural material and understanding its very early age (0-20 hours) hydration performance is of great importance. This dissertation proposes a novel approach to this topic using smart aggregate based active sensing approach. Two modes of smart aggregate, compressive mode and shear mode, were investigated and the results were compared. Both time domain and frequency domain analyses were conducted and the proposed approach can clearly identify the three distinct states, the liquid state, the transition state, and the hardened state, during the concrete hydration process. Soil freeze-thaw condition plays an important role in structural soil interaction in cold regions. The last chapter of this dissertation presents an innovative active sensing based method to monitor soil freeze-thaw condition using embedded smart aggregates. Since wave propagation is highly sensitive to the mechanical properties of soil during the freezing and thawing process, the received stress wave can be an effective indicator to determine the soil status. A wavelet packet-based soil frozen index was proposed and successfully applied to monitor the soil freezing or thawing status.Mechanical Engineering, Department o

Water presence detection in a concrete crack using smart aggregates

Liquid migrating into existing concrete cracks is a serious problem for the reliability of concrete structures and can sometimes induce full concrete structural failures. In this paper, the authors present recent research on water presence detection in concrete cracks using piezoceramic-based smart aggregate (SA) transducers. The active sensing approach, in which one piezoceramic transducer is used to generate stress waves and others are used to detect the stress wave responses, is adopted in this research. Cracks formed in concrete structures act as stress reliefs, which attenuate the energy of the signals received by the SAs. In case of a crack being filled with liquid, which changes the wave impedance, the piezoceramic transducers will report higher received energy levels. A wavelet packet-based approach is developed to provide calculated energy values of the received signal. These different values can help detect the liquid presence in a concrete crack. A concrete beam specimen with three embedded SAs was fabricated and tested. Experimental results verified that the SA-based active sensing approach can detect a concrete crack and further detect the liquid presence in the concrete crack