Study of Intelligent Approaches to Identify Impact of Environmental Temperature on Ultrasonic GWs Based SHM: A Review

Abstract

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is considered an effective approach to analyze the efficient working of several mechanical components. For this purpose, ultrasonic guided waves can cover long-distance and assess large infrastructures in just a single test using a small number of transducers. However, the working of the SHM mechanism can be affected by some sources of variations (i.e., environmental). To improve the final results of ultrasonic guided wave inspections, it is necessary to highlight and attenuate these environmental variations. The loading parameters, temperature and humidity have been recognized as the core environmental sources of variations that affect the SHM sensing mechanism. Environmental temperature has the most significant influence on SHM results. There is still a need for extensive research to develop such a damage inspection approach that should be insensitive to environmental temperature variations. In this framework, the current research study will not only illuminate the effect of environmental temperature through different intelligent approaches but also suggest the standard mechanism to attenuate it in actual ultrasonic guided wave based SHM. Hence, the work presented in this article addresses one of the open research challenges that are the identification of the effect of environmental and operating conditions in practical applications of ultrasonic guided waves and impedance-based SHM.