Structural time-varying damage detection using synchrosqueezing wavelet transform

This paper proposed a structural time-varying damage detection method by using synchrosqueezing wavelet transform. The instantaneous frequencies of a structure with time-varying damage are first extracted using the synchrosqueezing wavelet transform. Since the proposed synchrosqueezing wavelet transform is invertible, thus each individual component can be reconstructed and the modal participation factor ratio can be extracted based on the amplitude of the analytical signals of the reconstructed individual components. Then, the new time-varying damage index is defined based on the extracted instantaneous frequencies and modal participation factor ratio. Both free and forced vibrations of a classical Duffing nonlinear system and a simply supported beam structure with abrupt and linear time-varying damage are simulated. The proposed synchrosqueezing wavelet transform method can successfully extract the instantaneous frequencies of the damaged structures under free vibration or vibration due to earthquake excitation. The results also show that the defined time-varying damage index can effectively track structural time-varying damage.