Pseudospectra, MUSIC, and dynamic wavelet neural network for damage detection of highrise buildings

A non-parametric system identification-based model is presented for damage detection of highrise building structures subjected to seismic excitations using the dynamic fuzzy wavelet neural network (WNN) model developed by the authors. The model does not require complete measurements of the dynamic responses of the whole structure. A large structure is divided into a series of sub-structures around a few pre-selected floors where sensors are placed and measurements are made. The new model balances the global and local influences of the training data and incorporates the imprecision existing in the sensor data effectively, thus resulting in fast training convergence and high accuracy. A new damage evaluation method is proposed based on a power density spectrum method, called pseudospectrum. The multiple signal classification (MUSIC) method is employed to compute the pseudospectrum from the structural response time series. The methodology is validated using the data obtained for a 38-storey concrete test model. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the WNN model together with the pseudospectrum method for damage detection of highrise buildings based on a small amount of sensed data. Copyright q 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.