Fourier and wavelet analyses for fatigue assessment of concrete beams

We investigate damage detection in a simply-supported pre-stressed beam. A crack was propagated by fatigue loads, which were applied up to two million cycles. Both fast Fourier transform (FFT) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) are used in the analysis of the structural response to impulse loads. The acceleration response of the full-scale beam was measured each time a certain number of cycles of fatigue loads were applied. The results of this study show that both methods can clearly identify the crack growth induced by fatigue loads. The natural frequencies found by FFT are sensitive to the crack progression. The results from the CWT analysis show a clear difference in structural responses between the initial and damaged states of the structure. The response accelerations are de-noised by a soft-thresholding method before they are analyzed by CWT. In addition to the frequency components, the CWT shows the moment in time when particular frequencies occur. Therefore, wavelet analysis has the potential of becoming an effective tool for damage detection and health monitoring of structures for which the natural frequencies are irregularly changing. As the crack grows. the magnitude of ridges obtained by CWT analysis decreases significantly, which indicates the reduction in structural stiffness.