Guided wave‐based cable damage detection using wave energy transmission and reflection

Health monitoring of cables in civil engineering structures is a great challenge, because their integrity directly affects the safety of the whole structure. A magnetostrictive (MS) transducer-based guided wave method for cable damage detection is presented in this study. A wave energy-based method is proposed for damage localization and severity assessment. The wave energy transmission coefficient at the damage location is presented as a measure for the damage condition. Firstly, the wave dispersion properties were analyzed on a steel strand with seven helical wires using a semi-analytical finite element (SAFE) method. Then, the selection of exciting frequency and design of the MS transducer were carried out based on the SAFE analysis results. Numerical and experimental studies were performed on multiple cases of wire breakage and corrosion using the pitch-catch method. Time-of-flight information on the wave packets reflected from the damages was used for damage localizations, while wavelet coefficients were used to accurately analyze wave energy transmission and reflection. It has been found that the damage locations and damage conditions can be determined accurately using the proposed method.