Effective damage detection method based on electromechanical impedance and parallel connection of the transducers

. Several research studies aim to employ the electromechanical impedance method (EMI) for effective health monitoring. At the same time, limited studies focused on increasing damage detection efficiency using a combination of sensors under noise and temperature variation. This novel research aims to outperform the temperature compensation algorithm development by using a robust multiple-sensor instrumentational strategy for damage detection in structures. This research combines EMI resistance data in parallel connection for damage detection in the steel beam structure. The resistance parameters based on parallel combinations are studied and compared with the output of single transducers or series connections for the added simulated mass, and simulated cracks with variations of the temperature conditions. The performance comparison has been made in the selected frequency range of 1–100 kHz for the additional mass and 30-80 kHz for the simulated cracked steel beam. The damage sensitivity-based performance comparison has been studied using the root mean square deviation (RMSD) index. The resistance data fusion-based parallel connection has shown a better performance of damage detection capability over a single actuator or a series of connected actuators in varying environmental temperature conditions for the real crack and simulated added mass. The simulated added mass and crack are successfully detected at a higher temperature in the case of the parallel combination of the actuators.