Feasibility Study of Signal Processing Techniques for Vibration-Based Structural Health Monitoring in Residential Buildings †

Abstract

The growing vulnerability of residential buildings to seismic activity and dynamic loading underscores the need for robust, real-time Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems. This study investigates the feasibility of utilizing piezoelectric sensors integrated with advanced signal processing techniques, including Power Spectral Density (PSD) and Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT), for vibration-based SHM in residential structures. A scaled three-story building prototype was fabricated and subjected to controlled base excitations at 25 Hz and 0.6 g acceleration to evaluate the response under three structural conditions: healthy, randomly damaged, and thickness-damaged. The experimental results revealed that structural degradation significantly altered sensor outputs, with random damage causing irregular signal dispersion and thickness damage introducing additional frequency harmonics. PSD analysis effectively identified shifts in energy distribution, signifying structural degradation, while STFT provided a detailed time-frequency representation, facilitating real-time damage detection. The findings confirm that piezoelectric sensors, when combined with PSD and STFT, can serve as a low-cost, scalable solution for early damage detection in residential buildings, offering a practical framework for enhancing structural resilience against earthquakes and other dynamic forces.