Piezoelectric dynamic strain monitoring for detecting local seismic damage in steel buildings

This research presents a methodology for damage detection along with a sensing system for monitoring seismic damage in steel buildings. The system extracts the location and extent of local damage, such as fracture at a beam-column connection, from changes in the bending moment distribution in a steel moment-resisting frame. We developed a dynamic strain-based sensing system utilizing piezoelectric film sensors and wireless sensing techniques to estimate the bending moments resisted by individual structural members under small amplitude loadings such as ambient vibrations and minor earthquakes. We introduce a new damage index that extracts local damage information from the comparative study of the dynamic strain responses of the structural members before and after a large earthquake event. The damage detection scheme was examined both analytically and numerically using a simple frame example. Then, the entire local damage detection scheme was verified through a series of vibration tests using a one-quarter-scale steel testbed that simulated seismic damage at member ends.