Fault diagnosis of sensor networked structures with multiple faults using a virtual beam based approach

- A virtual beam based multi-fault diagnosis method is proposed for structures.
- A statistical adaptive threshold method is presented with only limited data.
- A 'biased running' strategy is developed for constructing effective virtual beams.
- The method is efficient for multi-fault localization with optimized virtual beams.
- Extensive experimental results validated the effectiveness and efficiency.

This paper presents a virtual beam based approach suitable for conducting diagnosis of multiple faults in complex structures with limited prior knowledge of the faults involved. The “virtual beam”, a recently-proposed concept for fault detection in complex structures, is applied, which consists of a chain of sensors representing a vibration energy transmission path embedded in the complex structure. Statistical tests and adaptive threshold are particularly adopted for fault detection due to limited prior knowledge of normal operational conditions and fault conditions. To isolate the multiple faults within a specific structure or substructure of a more complex one, a 'biased running' strategy is developed and embedded within the bacterial-based optimization method to construct effective virtual beams and thus to improve the accuracy of localization. The proposed method is easy and efficient to implement for multiple fault localization with limited prior knowledge of normal conditions and faults. With extensive experimental results, it is validated that the proposed method can localize both single fault and multiple faults more effectively than the classical trust index subtract on negative add on positive (TI-SNAP) method.