A Comprehensive Monitoring System for Damage Identification and Location in Large Structural and Mechanical Systems

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project conducted at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This project has focused on developing and experimentally verifying a suite of analytical tools for identifying the onset of damage in structural and mechanical systems from changes in their vibration characteristics. A MATLAB-based computer code referred to as Damage Identification And Modal aNalysis of Data @IAMOND) was developed. The code was then extensively exercised on data obtained from a variety of test structures. The most notable structure was an in situ bridge located ten mile north of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. The suite of tools contained in DIAMOND is now being applied to the nuclear weapons enhanced surveillance program and an industrial partner has asked to enter into a partnership so that they can implement routines from DIAMOND into their commercial damage assessment hardware for large civil engineering structures. Because of the large volume of requests from around the world for DIAMOND, it can now be downloaded from the web site: http://esaea-www.esa.lanl.gov/damagejd. Background and Research Objectives The interest in the ability to monitor a structure and detect damage at the earliest possible stage is pervasive throughout the civil, mechanical, and aerospace engineering communities. Current damage detection methods are either visual or localized experimental methods such as acoustic or resonant ultrasonic (RUS) methods, magnetic field methods, "Principal Investigator, e-mail: [email protected]