Computational simulation and experimental verification of a new vibration-based structural health monitoring approach using piezoelectric sensors

Abstract

Detection of damage in vital and high-cost infrastructures has been one of the major concerns of operators of such structures in the past two decades. The growing demands in oil and gas have forced extraction of such vital fuels in deep waters. Bolted joints are widely used in pipes transporting oil and gas in deep waters. However, they do develop inservice problems, such as loosened bolts, which if remained undetected, could cause significant environmental damage and economical loss, especially in the case of pipes used in deep-water oil extraction. In this study, the energy damage index (EDI) calculated based on a novel vibration-based damage detection methodology using the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is used to establish the existence of damage due to loosened bolts in common industrial bolted joints. A complete finite element (FE) model is established to simulate the whole process using the implicit dynamic solver of the commercial software ABAQUS ß . Also, a comprehensive experimental program was designed and carried out to verify the FE results. Results show that the EDI based on the EMD method is a powerful tool for not only detecting the damage, but also the progression of the damage in bolted joints.

A Review Paper on Looseness Detection Methods in Bolted Structures

“…Although the method is theoretically simple, to use the method, all paints and covers must be removed from the structure and sensors must be placed around every bolt, and this leads to unfavorability of this method You, et al, 2010). (Park, et al, 2003;Park, et al, 2001), thin plates (Pavelko, et al, 2011) and experimental setups (Ritdumrongkul, et al, 2004;Wait, et al, 2005;An & Sohn, 2012;Mascarenas, et al, 2009 (Trendafilova & Brussel, 2001;Tjahjowidodo, et al, 2007), metal (Guarino & Hamilton, 2009) and composite (Caccese, et al, 2004) structures, pipelines (Esmaeel, et al, 2012) and experimental setups (Adams & Farrar, 2002;Wit, et al, 1995;Nichols, 2007;Razi, et al, 2013 Case studies: Experimental setup Chang & Yang, 2006;Doyle, et al, 2010 Case studies: bolted joints in steel structures (Liew, et al, 2006) and experimental setups (Hirao, et al, 1994;Kawashima & Yasui, 2000). …”

“…Guarino and Hamilton (Guarino & Hamilton, 2009) investigated the vibrational signals obtained from impacts to metal structures and Esmaeel et al (Esmaeel, et al, 2012) and He and Zhu (He & Zhu, 2014) examined ways to diagnose and evaluate looseness of flange bolts in pipelines which a simple setup of their test is shown in Figure 4. Besides these studies, innovations have also been made by scholars regarding signal processing and analysis of vibrational signals.…”

Detection of structural bolt detorquing using direct stethoscope measurement

“…Accelerometer-based methods are exemplified by Jaques and Adams (2012) 1 , using an array of impact and sensor locations to detect loose bolts in lap joints and panels. Esmaeel et al (2012) 2 published a study of a bolted flange in a pipeline that was degraded by progressively loosening bolts. The structure was impacted with a hammer and the dynamic response was measured by an array of piezoelectric sensors.…”

Stethoscope-based detection of detorqued bolts using impact-induced acoustic emissions

“…On a more elemental level, the dynamic response of a small bolted joint was measured in a laboratory and compared to an analytical model developed to include nonlinear effects such as sticking and sliding (Feenstra, et al, 2005). Esmaeel et al (2012) published a study of a bolted flange in a pipeline that was degraded by progressively loosening bolts. The structure was impacted with a hammer and the dynamic response was measured by an array of piezoelectric sensors.…”