Vibration damage detection of a Timoshenko beam by spatial wavelet based approach

This paper presents a technique for structure damage detection based on spatial wavelet analysis. The wavelet transform is used to analyze the mode shape of a Timoshenko beam. First, the mode shapes of the Timoshenko beam containing a transverse crack are obtained. The crack is represented as a rotational spring. Then these spatially distributed signals are analyzed by wavelet transformation. It is observed that distributions of the wavelet coefficients can identify the crack position of Timoshenko beam by showing a peak at the position of the crack. It is also demonstrated that the crack position can be detected by this method even though the crack is very small. Assumed measurement errors are added to the mode shape for evaluating the effect of measurement errors on the capability of detecting crack position. The moving average method is used to process the data with assumed measurement errors. The crack positions can also be identified when there exist assumed measurement errors.