TY - JOUR A1 - Krause, Martin A1 - Dackermann, U. A1 - Li, J. T1 - Elastic wave modes for the assessment of structural timber: ultrasonic echo for building elements and guided waves for pole and pile structures N2 - This paper presents the state-of-the-art of using non-destructive testing (NDT) methods based on elastic waves for the condition assessment of structural timber. Two very promising approaches based on the propagation and reflections of elastic waves are described. While the first approach uses ultrasonic echoes for the testing of wooden building elements, the second approach uses guided waves (GW) for the testing of timber pole and pile structures. The basic principle behind both approaches is that elastic waves induced in a timber structure will propagate through its material until they encounter a change in stiffness, cross-sectional area or density, at which point they will reflect back. By measuring the wave echoes, it is possible to determine geometric properties of the tested structures such as the back wall of timber elements or the underground length of timber poles or piles. In addition, the internal state of the tested structures can be assessed since damage and defects such as rot, fungi or termite attacks will cause early reflections of the elastic waves as well as it can result in changes in wave velocity, wave attenuation and wave mode conversion. In the paper, the principles and theory of using elastic wave propagation for the assessment of wooden building elements and timber pole/pile structures are described. The state-of-the-art in testing equipment and procedures is presented and detailed examples are given on the practical application of both testing approaches. Recent encouraging developments of cutting edge research are presented along with challenges for future research. KW - Elastic wave KW - Ultrasonic echo KW - SAFT (synthetic aperture focusing technique) KW - Guided wave KW - Timber structure KW - Timber pole KW - Impulse response KW - Condition assessment KW - Timber KW - Non-destructive testing KW - Ultrasouind PY - 2014 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s13349-014-0087-2 SN - 2190-5452 SN - 2190-5479 VL - 5 IS - 2 SP - 221 EP - 249 PB - Springer CY - Berlin; Heidelberg AN - OPUS4-31867 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dackermann, U. A1 - Yu, Y. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Li, J. A1 - Wiggenhauser, Herbert T1 - Condition Assessment of Foundation Piles and Utility Poles Based on Guided Wave Propagation Using a Network of Tactile Transducers and Support Vector Machines N2 - This paper presents a novel non-destructive testing and health monitoring system using a network of tactile transducers and accelerometers for the condition assessment and damage classification of foundation piles and utility poles. While in traditional pile integrity testing an impact hammer with broadband frequency excitation is typically used, the proposed testing system utilizes an innovative excitation system based on a network of tactile transducers to induce controlled narrow-band frequency stress waves. Thereby, the simultaneous excitation of multiple stress wave types and modes is avoided (or at least reduced), and targeted wave forms can be generated. The new testing system enables the testing and monitoring of foundation piles and utility poles where the top is inaccessible, making the new testing system suitable, for example, for the condition assessment of pile structures with obstructed heads and of poles with live wires. For system validation, the new system was experimentally tested on nine timber and concrete poles that were inflicted with several types of damage. The tactile transducers were excited with continuous sine wave signals of 1 kHz frequency. Support vector machines were employed together with advanced signal processing algorithms to distinguish recorded stress wave signals from pole structures with different types of damage. The results show that using fast Fourier transform signals, combined with principal component analysis as the input feature vector for support vector machine (SVM) classifiers with different kernel functions, can achieve damage classification with accuracies of 92.5% ± 7.5%. KW - Structural Health Monitoring KW - Non-Destructive Testing KW - Sensor network KW - Support vector machine KW - Utility poles PY - 2017 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-434868 UR - http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/12/2938 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122938 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 17 IS - 12 SP - Article 2938, 1 EP - 16 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz AN - OPUS4-43486 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -