Damage detection on a full-scale highway sign structure with a distributed wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have emerged as a novel solution to many of the challenges of structural health monitoring (SHM) in civil engineering structures. While research projects using WSNs are ongoing worldwide, implementations of WSNs on full-scale structures are limited. In this paper, a WSN is implemented on a full-scale 17.3m, 11-bay highway sign support structure to investigate the ability to use vibration response data to detect damage induced in the structure. A multi-level damage detection strategy is employed: the Angle-between-String-and-Horizon (ASH) flexibility-based algorithm as the first level and the Axial Strain (AS) flexibility-based algorithm as the second level. For the proposed multi-level damage detection routine, level I damage detection will be conducted first to detect potential damaged regions. Subsequently, level II damage detection is conducted using the knowledge of potential damaged regions to locate the damaged elements. Several damage cases are created on the full-scale highway sign support structure to test the robustness of two methods. The results are compared to the results from a numerical study. The damage detection strategy is shown to be successful in detecting damage in the structure in several cases.