Abstract: Conventional geotechnical instrumentation techniques available for monitoring of slopes, especially soil-nailed slopes have limitations such as electromagnetic interference, low accuracy, poor longterm reliability and difficulty in mounting a series of strain sensors on a soil nail bar with a small-diameter. This paper presents a slope monitoring system based on fibre Bragg grating (FBG) sensing technology. This monitoring system is designed to perform long-term monitoring of slope movements, strains along soil nails, and other slope reinforcement elements. All these FBG sensors are fabricated and calibrated in laboratory and a trial of this monitoring system has been successfully conducted on a roadside slope in Hong Kong. As part of the slope stability improvement works, soil nails and a toe support soldier-pile wall were constructed. During the slope works, more than 100 FBG sensors were installed on a soil nail, a soldier pile, and an in- place inclinometer. The paper presents the layout and arrangement of the instruments as well as the installation procedures adopted. Monitoring data have been collected since March 2008. This trial has demonstrated the great potential of the optical fibre monitoring system for long-term monitoring of slope performance. The advantages of the slope monitoring system and experience gained in the field implementation are also discussed in the paper.

Abstract: This paper reports the structural health monitoring benchmark study results for the Canton Tower using Bayesian methods. In this study, output-only modal identification and finite element model updating are considered using a given set of structural acceleration measurements and the corresponding ambient conditions of 24 hours. In the first stage, the Bayesian spectral density approach is used for output-only modal identification with the acceleration time histories as the excitation to the tower is unknown. The modal parameters and the associated uncertainty can be estimated through Bayesian inference. Uncertainty quantification is important for determination of statistically significant change of the modal parameters and for weighting assignment in the subsequent stage of model updating. In the second stage, a Bayesian model updating approach is utilized to update the finite element model of the tower. The uncertain stiffness parameters can be obtained by minimizing an objective function that is a weighted sum of the square of the differences (residuals) between the identified modal parameters and the corresponding values of the model. The weightings distinguish the contribution of different residuals with different uncertain levels. They are obtained using the Bayesian spectral density approach in the first stage. Again, uncertainty of the stiffness parameters can be quantified with Bayesian inference. Finally, this Bayesian framework is applied to the 24- hour field measurements to investigate the variation of the modal and stiffness parameters under changing ambient conditions. Results show that the Bayesian framework successfully achieves the goal of the first task of this benchmark study.

Abstract: For the safety of prestressed structures such as cable-stayed bridges and prestressed concrete bridges, it is very important to ensure the prestress force of cable or tendon. The loss of prestress force could significantly reduce load carrying capacity of the structure and even result in structural collapse. The objective of this study is to present a smart PZT-interface for wireless impedance-based prestress-loss monitoring in tendon-anchorage connection. Firstly, a smart PZT-interface is newly designed for sensitively monitoring of electro-mechanical impedance changes in tendon-anchorage subsystem. To analyze the effect of prestress force, an analytical model of tendon-anchorage is described regarding to the relationship between prestress force and structural parameters of the anchorage contact region. Based on the analytical model, an impedance-based method for monitoring of prestress-loss is conducted using the impedance-sensitive PZT-interface. Secondly, wireless impedance sensor node working on Imote2 platforms, which is interacted with the smart PZT-interface, is outlined. Finally, experiment on a lab-scale tendon-anchorage of a prestressed concrete girder is conducted to evaluate the performance of the smart PZT-interface along with the wireless impedance sensor node on prestress-loss detection. Frequency shift and cross correlation deviation of impedance signature are utilized to estimate impedance variation due to prestress-loss.

Abstract: In bridge engineering, maintenance strategies and thus budgetary demands are highly influenced by construction type and quality of design. Nowadays bridge owners and planners tend to include life-cycle cost analyses in their decision processes regarding the overall design trying to optimize structural reliability and durability within financial constraints. Smart permanent and short term monitoring can reduce the associated risk of new design concepts by observing the performance of structural components during prescribed time periods. The objectives of this paper are the discussion and analysis of influence line or influence field approaches in terms of (a) an efficient incorporation of monitoring information in the structural performance assessment, (b) an efficient characterization of performance indicators for the assessment of structures, (c) the ability of optimizing the positions of sensors of a monitoring system, and (d) the ability of checking the robustness of the monitoring systems applied to a structure. The proposed influence line- model correction approach has been applied to an integrative monitoring system that has been installed for the performance assessment of an existing three-span jointless bridge.

Abstract: The present paper deals with the nonlinear analysis of the functionally graded piezoelectric (FGP) annular plate with two smart layers as sensor and actuator. The normal pressure is applied on the plate. The geometric nonlinearity is considered in the strain-displacement equations based on Von-Karman assumption. The problem is symmetric due to symmetric loading, boundary conditions and material properties. The radial and transverse displacements are supposed as two dominant components of displacement. The constitutive equations are derived for two sections of the plate, individually. Total energy of the system is evaluated for elastic solid and piezoelectric sections in terms of two components of displacement and electric potential. The response of the system can be obtained using minimization of the energy of system with respect to amplitude of displacements and electric potential. The distribution of all material properties is considered as power function along the thickness direction. Displacement-load and electric potential-load curves verify the nonlinearity nature of the problem. The response of the linear analysis is investigated and compared with those results obtained using the nonlinear analysis. This comparison justifies the necessity of a nonlinear analysis. The distribution of the displacements and electric potential in terms of non homogenous index indicates that these curves converge for small value of piezoelectric thickness with respect to elastic solid thickness.

Abstract: A challenging issue in design and implementation of an effective structural health monitoring (SHM) system is to determine where a number of sensors are properly installed In this paper, research on the optimal sensor placement (OSP) is carried out on the Canton Tower (formerly named Guangzhou New Television Tower) of 610 m high To avoid the intensive computationally-demanding problem caused by tens of thousands of degrees of freedom (DOFs) involved in the dynamic analysis, the three dimension finite element (FE) model of the Canton Tower is first simplified to a system with less DOFs Considering that the sensors can be physically arranged only in the translational DOFs of the structure, but not in the rotational DOFs, a new method of taking the horizontal DOF as the master DOF and rotational DOF as the slave DOF, and reducing the slave DOF by model reduction is proposed The reduced model is obtained by IIRS method and compared with the models reduced by Guyan, Kuhar, and IRS methods Finally, the OSP of the Canton Tower is obtained by a kind of dual-structure coding based generalized genetic algorithm (GGA)

Abstract: The authors\' research efforts recently led to the development of a customized wireless control unit which receives the real-time feedbacks from the sensors, and elaborates the consequent control signal to drive the actuator(s). The controller is wireless in performing the data transmission task, i.e., it receives the signals from the sensors without the need of installing any analogue cable connection between them, but it is powered by wire. The actuator also needs to be powered by wire. In this framework, the design of a power management unit is of interest only for the wireless sensor stations, and it should be adaptable to different kind of sensor requirements in terms of voltage and power consumption. In the present paper, the power management efficiency is optimized by taking into consideration three different kinds of accelerometers, a load cell, and a non-contact laser displacement sensor. The required voltages are assumed to be provided by a power harvesting solution where the energy is stored into a capacitor.

Abstract: Reinforced concrete (RC) framed buildings dissipate the seismic energy through yielding of the reinforcing bars. This yielding jeopardizes the serviceability of these buildings as it results in residual lateral deformations. Superelastic Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) can recover inelastic strains by stress removal. Since SMA is a costly material, this paper defines the required locations of SMA bars in a typical RC frame to optimize its seismic performance in terms of damage scheme and seismic residual deformations. The intensities of five earthquakes causing failure to a typical RC six-storey building are defined and used to evaluate seven SMA design alternatives.

Abstract: This study suggests a simple two-step method for structural vibration-based health monitoring for beam-like structures which only utilizes mode shape curvature and few natural frequencies of the structures in order to detect and localize cracks. The method is firstly based on the application of wavelet transform to detect crack locations from mode shape curvature. Then particle swarm optimization is applied to evaluate crack depth. As the Rayleigh quotient is introduced to estimate natural frequencies of cracked beams, the relationship of natural frequencies and crack depths can be easily obtained with only a simple formula. The method is demonstrated and validated numerically, using the numerical examples (cantilever beam and simply supported shaft) in the literature, and experimentally for a cantilever beam. Our results show that mode shape curvature and few estimated natural frequencies can be used to detect crack locations and depths precisely even under a certain level of noise. The method can be extended for health monitoring of other more complicated structures.

Abstract: The structural health monitoring (SHM) benchmark study on optimal sensor placement problem for the instrumented Canton Tower has been launched. It follows the success of the modal identification and model updating for the Canton Tower in the previous benchmark study, and focuses on the optimal placement of vibration sensors (accelerometers) in the interest of bettering the SHM system. In this paper, the sensor placement problem for the Canton Tower and the benchmark model for this study are first detailed. Then an information entropy based sensor placement method with the purpose of damage detection is proposed and applied to the benchmark problem. The procedure that will be implemented for structural damage detection using the data obtained from the optimal sensor placement strategy is introduced and the information on structural damage is specified. The information entropy based method is applied to measure the uncertainties throughout the damage detection process with the use of the obtained data. Accordingly, a multi-objective optimal problem in terms of sensor placement is formulated. The optimal solution is determined as the one that provides equally most informative data for all objectives, and thus the data obtained is most informative for structural damage detection. To validate the effectiveness of the optimally determined sensor placement, damage detection is performed on different damage scenarios of the benchmark model using the noise-free and noise-corrupted measured information, respectively. The results show that in comparison with the existing inservice sensor deployment on the structure, the optimally determined one is capable of further enhancing the capability of damage detection.

Abstract: Identification of vibration parameters from the analysis of the dynamic response of a structure plays a key role in current health monitoring systems. This study evaluates the capabilities of the recently developed Synchrosqueezed Wavelet Transform (SWT) to extract instant frequencies and damping values from the simulated noise-contaminated response of a structure. Two approaches to estimate the modal damping ratio from the results of the SWT are presented. The results obtained are compared to other signal processing methods based on Continuous Wavelet (CWT) and Hilbert-Huang (HHT) transforms. It was found that the time-frequency representation obtained via SWT is sharped than the obtained using just the CWT and it allows a more robust extraction of the individual modal responses than using the HHT. However, the identification of damping ratios is more stable when the CWT coefficients are employed.

Abstract: In this paper, vibration-based methods to monitor damage in foundation-structure interface of harbor caisson structure are presented. The following approaches are implemented to achieve the objective. Firstly, vibration-based damage monitoring methods utilizing a variety of vibration features are selected for harbor caisson structure. Autoregressive (AR) model for time-series analysis and power spectral density (PSD) for frequency-domain analysis are selected to detect the change in the caisson structure. Also, the changes in modal parameters such as natural frequency and mode shape are examined for damage monitoring in the structure. Secondly, the feasibility of damage monitoring methods is experimentally examined on an un-submerged lab-scaled mono-caisson. Finally, numerical analysis of un-submerged mono-caisson, submerged mono-caisson and un-submerged interlocked multiple-caissons are carried out to examine the effect of boundary-dependent parameters on the damage monitoring of harbor caisson structures.

Abstract: In this study, a Lamb-wave based damage detection approach is proposed for damage localization in plate. A sensor network consisting of three PZT wafer type actuators/sensors is used to generate and detect Lamb waves. To minimize the complication resulted from the multimode and dispersive characteristics of Lamb waves, the fundamental symmetric Lamb mode, S0 is selectively generated through designing the excitation frequency of the narrowband input signal. A damage localization algorithm based upon the configuration of the PZT sensor network is developed. Time-frequency analysis method is applied to purify the raw signal and extract damage features. Experimental result obtained from aluminum plate verified the proposed damage localization approach.

Abstract: In this paper, the structural health monitoring (SHM) benchmark problem of the Canton tower is studied. Based on the field monitoring data from the 20 accelerometers deployed on the tower, some modal frequencies and mode shapes at measured degrees of freedom of the tower are identified. Then, these identified incomplete modal data are used to update the reduced finite element (FE) model of the tower by a novel algorithm. The proposed algorithm avoids the problem of subjective selection of updated parameters and directly updates model stiffness matrix without model reduction or modal expansion approach. Only the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the normal finite element models corresponding to the measured modes are needed in the computation procedures. The updated model not only possesses the measured modal frequencies and mode shapes but also preserves the modal frequencies and modes shapes in their normal values for the unobserved modes. Updating results including the natural frequencies and mode shapes are compared with the experimental ones to evaluate the proposed algorithm. Also, dynamic responses estimated from the updated FE model using remote senor locations are compared with the measurement ones to validate the convergence of the updated model.

Abstract: Structural health monitoring with wireless sensor networks has received much attention in recent years due to the ease of sensor installation and low deployment and maintenance costs. However, sensor network technology needs to solve numerous challenges in order to substitute conventional systems: large amounts of data, remote configuration of measurement parameters, on-site calibration of sensors and robust networking functionality for long-term deployments. We present a structural health monitoring network that addresses these challenges and is used in several deployments for monitoring of bridges and buildings. Our system supports a diverse set of sensors, a library of highly optimized processing algorithms and a lightweight solution to support a wide range of network runtime configurations. This allows flexible partitioning of the application between the sensor network and the backend software. We present an analysis of this partitioning and evaluate the performance of our system in three experimental network deployments on civil structures.

Abstract: Thin-walled adaptive structures render a large and important group of adaptive structures. Typical material system used for them is a composite laminate that includes piezoelectric material based sensors and actuators. The piezoelectric active elements are in the form of thin patches bonded onto or embedded into the structure. Among different types of patches, the paper considers those polarized in the thickness direction. The finite element method (FEM) imposed itself as an essential technical support for the needs of structural design. This paper gives a brief description of a developed shell type finite element for active/adaptive thin-walled structures and the element is, furthermore, used as a tool to consider the aspect of mesh distortion over the surface of actuators and sensors. The aspect is of significance for simulation of behavior of adaptive structures and implementation of control algorithms.

Abstract: As civil structures are exposed to various external loads, it is essential to assess the structural condition, especially the structural displacement, in every moment. Therefore, a visually servoed paired structured light system was proposed in the previous study. The proposed system is composed of two screens facing with each other, each with a camera, a screen, and one or two lasers controlled by a 2-DOF manipulator. The 6-DOF displacement can be calculated from the positions of three projected laser beams and the rotation angles of the manipulators. In the estimation process, one of well-known iterative methods such as Newton-Raphson or extended Kalman filter (EKF) was used for each measurement. Although the proposed system with the aforementioned algorithms estimates the displacement with high accuracy, it takes relatively long computation time. Therefore, an incremental displacement estimation (IDE) algorithm which updates the previously estimated displacement based on the difference between the previous and the current observed data is newly proposed. To validate the performance of the proposed algorithm, simulations and experiments are performed. The results show that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces the computation time with the same level of accuracy compared to the EKF with multiple iterations.

Abstract: In this study an output-only system identification technique for civil structures under ambientm vibrations is carried out, mainly focused on using the Stochastic Subspace Identification (SSI) based algorithms. A newly developed signal processing technique, called Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA), capable to smooth a noisy signal, is adopted for preprocessing the measurement data. An SSA-based SSI algorithm with the aim of finding accurate and true modal parameters is developed through stabilization diagram which is constructed by plotting the identified system poles with increasing the size of data matrix. First, comparative study between different approaches, with and without using SSA to pre-process the data, on determining the model order and selecting the true system poles is examined in this study through numerical simulation. Finally, application of the proposed system identification task to the real large scale structure: Canton Tower, a benchmark problem for structural health monitoring of high-rise slender structures, using SSA-based SSI algorithm is carried out to extract the dynamic characteristics of the tower from output-only measurements.

Abstract: This study proposes an optics-based active sensing system for continuous monitoring of underground pipelines in nuclear power plants (NPPs). The proposed system generates and measures guided waves using a single laser source and optical cables. First, a tunable laser is used as a common power source for guided wave generation and sensing. This source laser beam is transmitted through an optical fiber, and the fiber is split into two. One of them is used to actuate macro fiber composite (MFC) transducers for guided wave generation, and the other optical fiber is used with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors to measure guided wave responses. The MFC transducers placed along a circumferential direction of a pipe at one end generate longitudinal and flexural modes, and the corresponding responses are measured using FBG sensors instrumented in the same configuration at the other end. The generated guided waves interact with a defect, and this interaction causes changes in response signals. Then, a damage-sensitive feature is extracted from the response signals using the axi-symmetry nature of the measured pitch-catch signals. The feasibility of the proposed system has been examined through a laboratory experiment.

Abstract: The instrumented Canton Tower is a 610 m high-rise structure, which has been considered as a benchmark problem for structural health monitoring (SHM) research. In this paper, an improved automatic modal identification method is presented based on a natural excitation technique in conjunction with the eigensystem realization algorithm (NExT/ERA). In the proposed modal identification method, damping ratio, consistent mode indicator from observability matrices (CMI_O) and modal amplitude coherence (MAC) are used as criteria to distinguish the physically true modes from spurious modes. Enhanced frequency domain decomposition (EFDD), the data-driven stochastic subspace identification method (SSI-DATA) and the proposed method are respectively applied to extract the modal parameters of the Canton Tower under different environmental conditions. Results of modal parameter identification based on output-only measurements are presented and discussed. User-selected parameters used in those methods are suggested and discussed. Furthermore, the effect of environmental conditions on the dynamic characteristics of Canton tower is investigated.

Abstract: An effective approach for updating finite element model is presented which can provide reliable estimates for structural updating parameters from identified operational modal data. On the basis of the dynamic perturbation method, an exact relationship between the perturbation of structural parameters such as stiffness change and the modal properties of the tested structure is developed. An iterative solution procedure is then provided to solve for the structural updating parameters that characterise the modifications of structural parameters at element level, giving optimised solutions in the least squares sense without requiring an optimisation method. A regularization algorithm based on the Tikhonov solution incorporating the generalised cross-validation method is employed to reduce the influence of measurement errors in vibration modal data and then to produce stable and reasonable solutions for the structural updating parameters. The Canton Tower benchmark problem established by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University is employed to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed model updating technique. The results from the benchmark problem studies show that the proposed technique can successfully adjust the reduced finite element model of the structure using only limited number of frequencies identified from the recorded ambient vibration measurements.

Abstract: The 610 m high Canton Tower (formerly named Guangzhou New Television Tower) is currently considered as a benchmark problem for structural health monitoring (SHM) of high-rise slender structures. In the benchmark study task I, a set of 24-hour ambient vibration measurement data has been available for the output-only system identification study. In this paper, the vector autoregressive models (ARV) method is adopted in the operational modal analysis (OMA) for this TV tower. The identified natural frequencies, damping ratios and mode shapes are presented and compared with the available results from some other research groups which used different methods, e.g., the data-driven stochastic subspace identification (SSI-DATA) method, the enhanced frequency domain decomposition (EFDD) algorithm, and an improved modal identification method based on NExT-ERA technique. Furthermore, the environmental effects on the estimated modal parameters are also discussed.

Abstract: Finite element (FE) model updating is a useful tool for global damage detection technique, which identifies the damage of the structure using measured vibration data. This paper presents the application of a finite element model updating method to detect the damage of a small-scale reinforced concrete building structure using measured acceleration data from shaking table tests. An iterative FE model updating strategy using the least-squares solution based on sensitivity of frequency response functions and natural frequencies was provided. In addition, a side constraint to mitigate numerical difficulties associated with ill-conditioning was described. The test structure was subjected to six El Centro 1942 ground motion histories with different Peak Ground Accelerations (PGA) ranging from 0.06 g to 0.5 g, and analytical models corresponding to each stage of the shaking were obtained using the model updating method. Flexural stiffness values of the structural members were chosen as the updating parameters. In model updating at each stage of shaking, the initial values of the parameter were set to those obtained from the previous stage. Severity of damage at each stage of shaking was determined from the change of the updated stiffness values. Results indicated that larger reductions in stiffness values occurred at the slab members than at the wall members, and this was consistent with the observed damage pattern of the test structure.

Abstract: Given an object, its positioning in the space is a main concern in structural monitoring and a required feedback in structural health monitoring, structural control and robotics. In addition, to make the sensor unit wireless is a crucial issue for advanced applications. This paper deals with the exploitation of wireless transmission technology to long-term monitoring GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers - like the Leica GMX 902 and the Leica GRX 1200-pro. These GPS receivers consist of five parts: antenna, receiver, user client computer, interface and power supply. The antenna is mounted on the object to be monitored and is connected with the receiver by a coaxial-cable through which the radio frequency signals are transmitted. The receiver unit acquires, tracks and demodulates the satellite signals and provides, through an interface which in this paper is made wireless, the resulting GPS raw data to the user client computer for being further processed by a suitable positioning algorithm. The power supply reaches the computer by a wired link, while the other modules rely on batteries re-charged by power harvesting devices. Two wireless transmission systems, the 24XStream and the CC1110, are applied to replace the cable transmission between the receiver and the user client computer which up to now was the only market offer. To verify the performance and the reliability of this wireless transmission system, some experiments are conducted. The results show a successful cable replacement.

Abstract: In the first part of the paper, the optimal design parameters for tuned liquid column dampers (TLCD) in harmonic pitching motion were investigated. The configurations in design tables include uniform and non-uniform TLCDs with cross-sectional ratios of 0.3, 0.6, 1, 2 and 3 for the design in different situations. A closed-form solution of the structural response was used for performing numerical optimization. The results from optimization indicate that the optimal structural response always occurs when the two resonant peaks along the frequency axis are equal. The optimal frequency tuning ratio, optimal head loss coefficient, the corresponding response and other useful quantities are constructed in design tables as a guideline for practitioners. As the value of the head loss coefficient is only available through experiments, in the second part of the paper, the prediction of head loss coefficients in the form of a design chart are proposed based on a series of large scale tests in pitching base motions, aiming to ease the predicament of lacking the information of head loss for those who wishes to make designs without going through experimentation. A large extent of TLCDs with cross-sectional ratios of 0.3, 0.6, 1, 2 and 3 and orifice blocking ratios ranging from 0%, 20%, 40%, 60% to 80% were inspected by means of a closed-form solution under harmonic base motion for identification. For the convenience of practical use, the corresponding empirical formulas for predicting head loss coefficients of TLCDs in relation to the cross-sectional ratio and the orifice blocking ratio were also proposed. For supplemental information to horizontal base motion, the relation of head loss values versus blocking ratios and the corresponding empirical formulas were also presented in the end.

Abstract: This paper summarizes a study for the modal analysis and model updating conducted using the monitoring data obtained from the Canton Tower of 610 m tall, which was established as an international benchmark problem by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Modal properties of the tower were successfully identified using frequency domain decomposition and stochastic subspace identification methods. Finite element model updating using the measurement data was further performed to reduce the modal property differences between the measurements and those of the finite element model. Over-fitting during the model updating was avoided by using an optimization scheme with a regularization term.

Abstract: Guided waves have shown a great potential for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. In contrast to traditional non-destructive testing (NDT) methodologies, a key element of SHM approaches is the high process of automation. The monitoring system should decide autonomously whether the host structure is intact or not. A basic requirement for the realization of such a system is that the sensors are permanently installed on the host structure. Thus, baseline measurements become available that can be used for diagnostic purposes, i.e., damage detection, localization, etc. This paper contributes to guided wave-based inspection in anisotropic materials for SHM purposes. Therefore, computational strategies are described for both, the solution of the complex equations for wave propagation analysis in composite materials based on exact elasticity theory and the popular global matrix method, as well as the underlying equations of two active damage localization algorithms for anisotropic structures. The result of the global matrix method is an angular and frequency dependent wave velocity characteristic that is used subsequently in the localization procedures. Numerical simulations and experimental investigations through time-delay measurements are carried out in order to validate the proposed theoretical model. An exemplary case study including the calculation of dispersion curves and damage localization is conducted on an exemplary unidirectional composite structure where the ultrasonic signals processed in the localization step are simulated with the spectral element method. The proposed study demonstrates the capabilities of the proposed algorithms for accurate damage localization in anisotropic structures.

Abstract: Mode shape expansion is useful in structural dynamic studies such as vibration based structural health monitoring; however most existing expansion methods can not consider the modelling errors in the finite element model and the measurement uncertainty in the modal properties identified from vibration data. This paper presents a reliable approach for expanding mode shapes with consideration of both the errors in analytical model and noise in measured modal data. The proposed approach takes the perturbed force as an unknown vector that contains the discrepancies in structural parameters between the analytical model and tested structure. A regularisation algorithm based on the Tikhonov solution incorporating the L-curve criterion is adopted to reduce the influence of measurement uncertainties and to produce smooth and optimised expansion estimates in the least squares sense. The Canton Tower benchmark problem established by the Elong Kong Polytechnic University is then utilised to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed expansion approach to the actual structure. The results from the benchmark problem studies show that the proposed approach can provide reliable predictions of mode shape expansion using only limited information on the operational modal data identified from the recorded ambient vibration measurements.

Abstract: Measuring crack length in concrete fracture test is not a trivial problem due to high speed crack propagation. In this study, mechanoluminascent (ML) material, which emits visible light under stress condition, was employed to visualize crack propagation during concrete fracture test. Three-point bending test was conducted with a notched concrete beam specimen. The cracking images due to ML phenomenon were recorded by using a high speed camera as a function of time and external loadings. The experimental results successfully demonstrated the capability of ML material as a promising visualization tool for concrete crack propagation. In addition, an interesting cracking behavior of concrete bending fracture was observed in which the crack propagated fast while the load decreased slowly at early fracture stage.