Impact event identification through real-time strain measurements

Impact event identification is a primary concern in many structural health monitoring applications. Model-based inverse analysis is a common approach for system identification as long as the physical model can accurately capture the behavior of structure. A layered analysis including estimation of impact location (IL) in the first layer and reconstruction of impact load time history (ILTH) in the second layer was proposed. An implementation of the theory on a simply supported plate structure is conducted in this study. The results indicate that the proposed inverse scheme is capable of detecting impact location and reconstructing impact load time history with a satisfactory precision. Due to presence of system error, a suitable cost function has to be chosen to guide the fitting process toward the desired parameters.