Application of wavelet transform in damage identification in a thick steel beam based on ultrasonic guided wave propagation

In this study, the structural health of a thick steel beam, made of ST-52, is inspected by ultrasonic guided wave propagation method using piezoelectric wafer active sensors that is one of the most important techniques of on-line structural health monitoring. The key parameters of the diagnostic waveform such as excitation frequency and cycle number are determined in relation to beam dimensions as well as pulse-echo configuration of PZT active sensors attached to the beam. Finite element simulations were conducted to characterize wave propagation in the beam, and the signals of wave propagation were experimentally measured. For signal processing and feature extraction, continuous wavelet transform and scaled average wavelet power technique are used. Using the extracted features, probable existing damage in the structure is detected, localized, and intensified. The acquired results are representing a higher precision of the implemented method for damage identification and characterization with respect to a previous study.