Work

ARMA Model for Tracking Accelerated Corrosion Damage in a Steel Beam

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This paper proposes an enhanced vibration-based damage detection index leveraging autoregressive moving average (ARMA) time-series modeling. The method relies on the fact that material deterioration alters the vibration features of the structure. Thus, the proposed method employs an innovative usage of the ARMA time-series modeling to capture subtle shifts in the vibration response. Specifically, first, a reference ARMA model is fitted on the acceleration response of the undamaged structure. Next, a damage index (DI) is built from the goodness of fit between predicted responses from the reference ARMA model and the actual measured damaged-state acceleration data. Experimental validation was conducted on a steel beam subjected to a controlled accelerated corrosion (up to 40% thickness loss), simulating real-world degradation. Accelerations due to quick-release tests were collected using two accelerometers, along with thickness measurements providing ground-truth damage progression. Results demonstrate that the proposed method can provide sufficient sensitivity in detecting early-stage corrosion progression. This finding highlights the proposed usage of ARMA model's potential for early structural damage detection, offering significant advantages for safety and maintenance strategies in civil engineering applications.

Source: Sensors

DOI: 10.3390/s25082384