A SHM method for detecting damage with incomplete observations based on VARX modelling and Granger causality

A SHM method is proposed that minimises the required number of sensors for detecting damage. The damage detection method consists of two steps. In an initial characterization step, substructuring approach is applied to the healthy structure in order to isolate the substructures of interest and later, each substructure is identified by a Vector Auto-Regressive with eXogenous inputs (VARX) model measuring all DOFs. Then, pairwise conditional Granger causality analysis is carried out with data measured from substructural DOFs to evaluate the information loss when measurements from all DOFs are not available. This analysis allows selecting those accelerometers that can be suppressed minimising the information loss. In the evaluation phase, vibration data from the reduced set of sensors is compared to the estimated data obtained from the healthy substructure’s VARX model, and as a result a damage indicator is computed. The proposed detection method is validated by finite element simulations in a lattice structure model.