Analysis of imperfection measurements of structural members

The structural behaviour of thin-walled structures has been shown to display a high degree of sensitivity towards small geometrical imperfections. Measurement data of such imperfections exists for various types of thin-walled members and structures. The range of analysis techniques employed by researchers to gain systematic information from these measurements has been limited in comparison to other scientific disciplines where problems which are similar in nature also occur. In this paper a number of data analysis procedures which are also used for example in the field of chemometrics among others are applied to imperfection measurements. The procedures are briefly explained and references are given to more in-depth background information. Small examples illustrate the application of these procedures on the analysis of imperfections and a practical example is given where these data analysis methods are applied on imperfection measurements of six thin-walled tubular members.