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

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 in-service 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 © . 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.