A cost-effective impedance-based structural health monitoring technique for steel structures by monitoring multiple areas

Abstract

Throughout the ages, ensuring structural safety has always been a vital task as civil infrastructures deteriorate due to the surrounding environment with time. Although various non-destructive techniques exist nowadays for maintaining the structural integrity, most of the techniques require expensive equipment with highly trained experts. In addition, onsite techniques may require a downtime period of the structure, causing inconvenience for the public. The purpose of this study is to introduce a cost-effective, impedance-based health monitoring approach using the electromechanical impedance technique. Since one device with a piezoelectric material is used to monitor a single area, this can be extremely costly when covering large areas such as bridges and buildings. To overcome this problem, a technique is introduced in this study for one device to monitor multiple areas, significantly reducing the equipment cost when covering large areas.