Fused empirical mode decomposition and wavelets for locating combined damage in a truss-type structure through vibration analysis

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is a relevant topic for civil systems and involves the monitoring, data processing and interpretation to evaluate the condition of a structure, in order to detect damage. In real structures, two or more sites or types of damage can be present at the same time. It has been shown that one kind of damaged condition can interfere with the detection of another kind of damage, leading to an incorrect assessment about the structure condition. Identifying combined damage on structures still represents a challenge for condition monitoring, because the reliable identification of a combined damaged condition is a difficult task. Thus, this work presents a fusion of methodologies, where a single wavelet-packet and the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method are combined with artificial neural networks (ANNs) for the automated and online identification-location of single or multiple-combined damage in a scaled model of a five-bay truss-type structure. Results showed that the proposed methodology is very efficient and reliable for identifying and locating the three kinds of damage, as well as their combinations. Therefore, this methodology could be applied to detection-location of damage in real truss-type structures, which would help to improve the characteristics and life span of real structures.