Structural damage detection and localization via an unsupervised anomaly detection method

Abstract

This study introduces an unsupervised machine learning framework for damage detection and localization in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), leveraging dynamic graph convolutional neural networks and Transformer networks. This approach is specifically tailored to overcome the challenge of limited labeled data in SHM, enabling precise analysis and feature synthesis from sensor-derived time series data for accurate damage identification. Incorporating a novel ‘localization score’ enhances the framework’s precision in pinpointing structural damages by integrating data-driven insights with a physics-informed understanding of structural dynamics. Extensive validations on diverse structures, including a benchmark steel structure and a real-world cable-stayed bridge, underscore the framework’s effectiveness in anomaly detection and damage localization, showcasing its potential to safeguard critical infrastructure through advanced data-effective machine learning techniques. • An unsupervised machine learning method for structural damage detection and localization. • It utilizes advanced techniques including Graph CNN and Transformer. • A novel, normalized, quantitative metric is proposed for accurate damage localization. • Extensive evaluations on both synthetic and real data show its effectiveness.