Modeling of nonlinear wave velocity characteristics in a structural health monitoring system

In the framework of structural health monitoring the research proposed in this paper focuses on a new methodology to model the nonlinear group velocity characteristics of guided waves in plate-like composite materials based on a experimental dataset. The detection and localization of damages in these composite materials is demanding due to the anisotropic wave propagation. Therefore, a well generalizing and smooth nonlinear model for the group velocities is an important part in the damage localization system. The underlying work analyzes and compares different model structures. The incorporation of physical knowledge about the process into the modeling process turns out to be of fundamental importance. Furthermore, this paper points out which nonlinear optimization approach should be applied to deliver reproducible and robust solutions.