Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Comparison studies of open and breathing crack detections

of a beam-like bridge subjected to a moving vehicle
Khoa Viet Nguyen
Institute of Mechanics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, Cau Giay, Ha Noi, Viet Nam

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 16 April 2012
Revised 18 January 2013
Accepted 23 January 2013
Available online 8 March 2013
Keywords:
Breathing crack
Crack detection
Damage detection
Moving vehicle
Moving load
Wavelet transform
Wavelet-based method
Instantaneous frequency

a b s t r a c t
In this paper, based on the comparison between open and breathing crack detections of a vehiclebridge
system subjected to a moving vehicle, a wavelet spectrum technique for detection of breathing crack phenomenon is presented. The stiffness of element with an open crack is calculated from fracture mechanics
and the stiffness of element with a breathing crack is modeled as a time dependent stiffness matrix using
the stiffness of the element with an open crack. When there is a breathing crack, the stiffness matrix of
the structure at each moment depends on the curvature of the structure at the crack position. The simulation results show that when the crack breaths the amplitude of the vibration of the beam is smaller
than in the case of an open crack. This is a warning for crack detection by using the amplitude of the
dynamic response when there is a breathing crack in the structure. The open and breathing cracks can
be distinguished by monitoring the instantaneous frequency (IF) of the system using the wavelet spectrum. While the IF in the case of open cracks remains unchanged during vibration, it is varying when
there is a presence of breathing cracks. It is interesting that peaks in the wavelet transform of the
response used to determine crack positions in case of breathing crack(s) are much larger in comparison
with the case of open crack(s). The cracks can be detected with a noise level up to 10% for the case of
breathing cracks while it is only 5% for the case of open cracks [28]. These imply that the wavelet-based
method for crack detection is much more efcient when breathing crack(s) are present in comparison
with the case of open crack(s).
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In practice, a crack may not be only open or closed at all times,
but it can open and close regularly depending on loading conditions on the cracked structure (residual loads, body weight of a
structure, etc.), and the vibration effect. If the static deection of
a structure due to, for example, dead loads, own weight, etc. exceeds the vibration amplitudes, then the crack will remain open
all the time. If the static deection does not exceed the vibration
amplitudes, the crack will open and close periodically depending
on the amplitude of the vibration. This crack type was termed a
breathing crack and was discussed by Chondros et al. [1]. The dynamic response to harmonic excitation of a beam with several
breathing cracks was analyzed by Pugno et al. [2], Rizzo and Scalea
[3]. In their study, natural frequencies of a beam with a breathing
crack were shown to be not constant during vibration, rather the
frequency changed over time, and the relative decrease in natural
frequencies found is much smaller than decrease(s) due to an open
crack. Douka and Hadjileontiadis [4] proposed a method called
Tel.: +84 4 38326140.
E-mail address: nvkhoa@imech.ac.vn
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2013.01.018

empirical mode decomposition to analyse the instantaneous frequency (IF). It was shown that the IF oscillates between frequencies corresponding to the open and closed states thereby
revealing the breathing of the crack. The presence of a non-linear
phenomenon of a beam with breathing crack has been studied by
Sundermeyer and Weaver [5]. In their study results, a large response is presented due solely to the nonlinearity existing at the
difference between the two excitation frequencies. Bovsunovsky
and Matveev [6] presented a concept of concomitant mode shapes
that occur at the time the crack closes and opens to explain the
nonlinearity caused by the breathing crack. To investigate the dynamic behavior of damaged concrete bridge structures under moving vehicular loads Law and Zhu [7] proposed a bilinear
mechanism model for breathing crack phenomenon where the
crack is assumed to be either fully open or closed. Sinha [8] presented the Higher Order Coherences method for crack detection
of a cantilever beam by analyzing the harmonic components generated due to the breathing crack phenomenon. Qian et al. [9]
and Ariaei et al. [10] stated that the difference between the displacement response of the intact beam and the cracked beam
due to breathing crack is smaller than that between an opencracked beam and intact beam.

307

K.V. Nguyen / Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

There are several methods to extract useful information from the

response of a structure for crack detection. Among these methods,
the wavelet transform emerged as an efcient tool for signal processing due to its exibility and precision in time and frequency resolution.
Lu and Hsu [11], and Hong et al. [12] presented a wavelet based method for detection of structural damage. The minor localized damage induced signicant changes of the wavelet coefcients at the location of
the damage. The magnitude of the Lipschitz exponent was used as an
indicator of the extent of damage when studying bending mode shapes
of a cracked beam. Rucka and Wilde [13] proposed a wavelet based
method to localize damage in a cantilever beam using static deection.
The efciency of the method was veried by analytically and experimentally determined data. Ovanesova and Suarez [14] presented
applications of the wavelet transform to detect cracks in frame structures. They concluded that the location of the crack can be detected by
using a response signal from static or dynamic loads. Kim and Melhem
[15] studied several wavelet based methods for crack detection of
structures. In their study, the existence, the location, and the severity of the crack can be detected. Pakrashi et al. [16] presented a
method for structural damage detection and calibration using a
waveletkurtosis technique. In this study, the mode shape and the static deected shape were analyzed to localize the crack. Loutridis et al.
[17] studied a double-cracked beam and concluded that the positions
of the cracks can be determined by the sudden changes in the spatial
variation of the continuous wavelet transform. Locations of damage in
cantilever and simply supported beams were also detected by wavelet
based method using static deection as reported by Poudel et al. [18].
In their experiments, the static deections were obtained by processing digital photographs of the beams. Castro et al. [19,20] successfully
applied the wavelet transform to detect the existence and location of
damage caused by local changes in density or stiffness in rods subject
to free and forced vibration. Nguyen and Olatunbosun [21] presented a method for remote monitoring the cracked structure
using the breathing crack phenomenon and wavelet transform. In
this study, the crack was detected by analyzing the discontinuity
of the dynamic response obtained from only one measurement
point. Recently, Ren and Sun [22] proposed a method using wavelet entropy for structural damage identication. They concluded
that wavelet-time entropy is a sensitive for detecting the abnormality in measured successive vibration signals, while relative
wavelet entropy is a suitable for the detection of damage occurrence and damage location.
The analysis of continuous elastic systems subjected to moving
subsystems has been a topic of interest in many diverse elds such
as civil and aerospace engineering for well over a century. The
problem arose in the design of railway bridges, roadways, tunnels,
bridges, etc. In bridge engineering especially, many applications
have been developed from the study of this subject. Parhi and
Behera [23] presented an analytical method along with experimental verication to investigate the vibration behavior of a cracked
beam under a moving mass. The vehiclebridge interaction system
was calculated by Piombo et al. [24] by considering it as a threespan orthotropic plate subject to a seven degrees-of-freedom multi-body system with linear suspensions and tire exibility. In other
studies, Mahmoud and Zaid [25] presented iterative methods for
the effect of single transverse cracks on the dynamic behavior of
simply supported and cantilever undamped EulerBernoulli beams
subject to a moving mass. While Lee et al. [26] proposed a procedure for identication of the operational modal properties and
the assessment of damage locations and their associated severities.
Bilello and Bergman [27] studied beams with damage modeled by
rotational springs subject to a moving load. Recently, Zhu and Law
[28], Nguyen and Tran [29] studied a cracked bridge subject to a
moving vehicular load by analyzing the operational deection time
history of a vehiclebridge system and utilizing the wavelet
transform for crack detection. However, most of the current works

relating to crack detection of a bridge subjected to a moving vehicle focuses on fully open cracks, while the breathing crack phenomenon has not been investigated.
The aim of this study is to investigate the inuences of the
breathing phenomenon on the crack detection of a beam-like
bridge subjected to a moving vehicle in comparison with the case
of fully open cracks. Based on the comparisons, a method using the
combination of the wavelet spectrum and breathing crack phenomenon for crack detection of a vehiclebridge system which
has not been investigated to date is proposed. Better results and
a warning for crack detection of the vehiclebridge system with
the presence of a breathing crack are revealed and suggested.
The theoretical model of a beam-like bridge with breathing cracks
and wavelet analysis are presented hereinafter. Numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate the comparison results.
2. Dynamics of a beam-like structure under moving vehicle
2.1. Intact beam like structure
Consider the bridgevehicle system shown in Fig. 1. In this
study the half-vehicle model is adopted from [30]. The bridge deck
is modeled approximately as an EulerBernoulli beam. The surface
unevenness of the bridge is modeled as a function r(x). It is assumed that the tyres are always in contact with the supported
beam. Under these assumptions the equation of motion for the
bridgevehicle system can be written as follows:

38 9
>
d1 >
>
>
>
>
>
<
=
7
2 >
0 7 d
7
> d3 >
>
0 5>
>
> >
>
4 ;
m2 : d

I0

60
6
6
40

m0

m1

2
b1 c1

b2 c2

b1 c1  b2 c2

b1 c1

6
6 b1 c1  b2 c2
c1 c2
c1
6
6
b
c
c
c
4
1
1
1 c3
b2 c2
c2
0
2
2
2
k1 b1 k2 b2 k1 b1  k2 b2 k1 b1
6
6 k1 b1  k2 b2
k1 k2
k1
6
6
k1
k1 k3
4 k1 b1
k2
0
k2 b2
8
9
0
>
>
>
>
>
>
<
=
0

>
k3 y1 c3 u_ 1 >
>
>
>
>
:
;
k4 y2 c4 u_ 2

38 9
>
> d_ 1 >
>
>_ >
>
7>
<
=
d
c2 7
2
7
7> _ >
0 5>
d >
>
> 3>
>
:
;
c2 c4
d_ 4
38 9
d1 >
k2 b2 >
> >
>
7>
<
=
7
k2 7 d2
7 d >
0 5>
3>
>
>
: >
;
d4
k2 k4
b2 c2

CD_ KD NT f1 NT f2
MD
1
2

where the displacements underneath the tyres y1 and y2 are given

as [31]:

y1 u1 x1 ; t rx1

y2 u2 x2 ; t rx2

rx




d
2px
1  cos
l
2

 and l are the surface irregularity depth and length, respectively.

d
The interaction forces between the vehicle and the bridge can
be written as:

3  m0 gb2  I0 d1 m0 b2 d2
f1 m1 g  m1 d
b1 b2
b1 b2

308

K.V. Nguyen / Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

Fig. 1. A beam-like bridge subjected to a moving vehicle.

0.0E+00

Here I0, b1, b2, m0, m1, m2, k1, k2, k3, k4, c1, c2, c3, c4 are vehicle parameters; d1, d2, d3, d4 are four vehicle degrees of freedom; v is the moving speed of vehicle; u1, u2 are the vertical displacements of the
beam at the contact points 1 and 2. Structural parameters consist
of: M, C and K structural mass, damping and stiffness matrices.
The interaction forces acting on the beam at contact points denoted
by f1 and f2; g is gravitational acceleration. NT is the transposition of
the shape functions at the position x of the interaction force; d is the
nodal displacement of the beam. From the nodal displacement d
and the shape functions N, the displacement of the beam u at the
arbitrary position x can be interpolated as [32]:

u Nd

Substituting (3)(5) into Eq. (1) and combining with Eq. (2) yields:
0
BM
B
B
B
BO
B
BO
B
B
@O
O

2
X
NTi fhi

2
X

i1

i1

m1 NT1

I0

0
0

m0
0

0
m1

C
B
B O
B
B
B O
B
@ c3 N1
0

NTi fyi

c4 N2

OT

1
0 1

m2 NT2 C d
CB C
CB d
1 C
C
C
0 CB
C
CB
B d2 C
0 C
B
C@ d
3 C
A
C
0 A
d4
m2
OT

OT

b1 c1  b2 c2

b1 c 1  b2 c 2
c1 c2

b1 c1
c1

b1 c1
b2 c 2

c1
c2

c1 c3
0

2
b1 c1

2
b2 c 2

C
B
B
O
B
B
O
B
B
@ k3 N1  c3 N1x x_ 1
k4 N2  c4 N2x x_ 2
0
1
2
X
NTi ^f i C
B
B i1
C
B
C
B
C
0
B
C
B
C
B
C
0
B
C
B
C
@ k3 rx1 A
k4 rx2

OT
2
k2 b2

10

1
d_
CB _ C
b2 c2 CB d1 C
CB C
B_ C
c2 C
CB d2 C
CB _ C
0 A@ d3 A
c2 c 4
d_ 4
OT

k1 b1  k2 b2
k1 b1

k1 k2
k1

k1
k1 k3

k2 b2

k2

10 1
d
OT
CB C
k2 b2 CB d1 C
CB C
B C
k2 C
CB d2 C
CB C
0 A@ d3 A
d4
k2 k4

f y1

15

20

-1.0E-03

-1.5E-03

-2.0E-03

-2.5E-03

Time (s)

Fig. 2. Displacement of the beam, crack depth is 20% of the beam height.  :
Intact beam; : breathing crack; : open crack.

b2
m0 g  m1 g;
b1 b2

^f 2 

b1
m0 g  m2 g
b1 b2

11

2.2.1. Stiffness matrix of an open cracked element

Fig. 2 shows a uniform beam-like structure divided into Q elements with R cracks located in R different elements. A brief
description for deriving the element stiffness matrix of an open
cracked element is presented here, while more details can be obtained from previous works [9,28]. The stiffness matrix of the open
cracked element is derived as follows:

~ 1 T
Ko TT C

b2

m0 ;
b1 b2

f y2
10

12

where

where Nx denotes the rst derivative with respect to x of N; O is a

zero row matrix, and:

fh1

10

2.2. Cracked beam like structure

OT
k1 b1

1
1

I0 ; f h2 
I0 ;
b1 b2
b1 b2
b1

m0
b1 b2

-5.0E-04

^f 1 

OT
k1 b1  k2 b2

2
k1 b1

Displacement of the vehicle (m)

4  m0 gb1  I0 d1 m0 b1 d2
f2 m2 g  m2 d
b1 b2
b1 b2

1

L

1

T

13

~ is exibility matrix of the cracked element which is the sum of the

C
0
exibility matrix of the intact element ~cij and the additional exi1
bility matrix ~cij due to the crack. Components of the exibility matrix of the intact element and additional exibility coefcient can be
calculated from the fracture mechanics as follows:

~c0
ij

@ 2 W 0
;
@Pi @Pj

i; j 1; 2;

P1 P;

P2 M

14

~cij1

@ 2 W 1
;
@Pi @Pj

i; j 1; 2;

P 1 P;

P2 M

15

309

K.V. Nguyen / Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

where W(0) is the strain energy of an element without a crack; and

W(1) is the additional energy due to the crack; P and M are the shear
and bending internal forces at the right node of the element. Taking
into account only bending, W(0) and W(1) are calculated as:
2 3

W 0

1
P l
2
M 2 l MPl
2EI
3

W 1 b

a
0

16

2.2.3. Global matrices of a beam like structure

The stiffness matrix and mass matrix for an element without a
crack are obtained from nite element model:

17

22

K IM K IP 2 K 2IIP
da
E0

a breathing crack will be smaller than the beam with an open

crack.

3
12
6l 12 6l
6
2
2 7
6l 2l 7
4l
EI 6 6l
7
Ke 3 6
7
6
l 4 12 6l 12 6l 5
2

K IM

6l

where

6M

p
paF I s
2

bh
p
P paF II s

bh

K IP

p
3Pl paF I s
2

bh

18

Me

156

6
22l
ml 6
6
420 6
4 54

22l

54

13l

13l

156

4l

1:122  0:561s 0:085s2 0:18s3

p
1s

13l 3l
19

20

Here, h is the thickness and b is the width of the beam.

2.2.2. Stiffness matrix of a breathing cracked element
When a breathing crack is present in the bridge, there is experimental evidence that the crack opens and closes gradually leading
to a gradual change in the stiffness at the cross section of the crack
during vibration [2]. In previous works the stiffness matrix of a
breathing cracked beam was determined by using a known frequency of a free or forced vibration. However, when considering
a moving vehicle it is difcult to determine such a known frequency. To overcome this situation, Ariaei et al. [10] proposed a
method to build the stiffness of a breathing cracked element using
the curvature of the beam at the crack location. Following their
study the stiffness at the crack position depends on the curvature
of beam at the crack location and can be expressed as a continuous
function of time in the form of:

"
#
00
1
d
Kb Ke Ko  Ke 1 00
2
dmax

21

where Kb and Ko are the stiffness of the element with breathing

00
crack, open crack and Ke is the stiffness of the intact element. d
is the instantaneous curvature of the beam at the crack position
00
and dmax is the maximum curvature of the beam at the crack position during motion of the vehicle. Eq. (21) shows that when
00
00
d dmax the stiffness Kb is maximum and equal to Ke the stiff00
00
ness of an intact element. When d dmax the stiffness Kb is minimum and equal to Ko the stiffness of an open cracked element.
By this method, the stiffness of a breathing cracked element can
be determined based on the stiffness of an open cracked and intact
element without reference to a known frequency. Therefore, in this
work Eq. (21) will be used to calculate the stiffness matrix of the
breathing cracked beam.
According to Eq. (21), the stiffness of the breathing cracked
beam is changing leading to the change in frequency during vibration. Therefore, it is expected that when there is a breathing crack,
the IF of the beam will be changing during vibration. It is also noted
that the stiffness of the breathing cracked beam is always greater
than or equal to the stiffness of the beam with a fully open crack
and smaller than or equal to the stiffness of the intact beam. Because of this, it can be predicted that the response of the beam with

4l

6l

4
2 ps 0:923 0:199 1  sinp2s
ps
F I s
tg
2
ps
cos 2
F II s 3s  2s2

K IIP

2l

22l

13l

2 7
3l 7
7
7
22l 5

4l

23

where I is the moment of inertia; E is the Youngs modulus and m

and l are the mass and the length of the element respectively.
The global mass matrix M is assembled from element mass
matrices Me and global stiffness matrix K of the breathing cracked
beam is assembled from element stiffness Ke and Kb. Rayleigh
damping in the form of C = aM + bK is used for the beam. Where
a and b are calculated as follows [32]:

2x1 x2 n1 x2  n2 x1
;
x22  x21

2n2 x2  n1 x1
x22  x21

24

Substituting global matrices M, C, and K of the breathing cracked

beam into Eq. (9) and solving this equation using the Newmark
method, the dynamic responses of the vehiclebridge system will
be obtained.
3. Wavelet transform
A wavelet is a function which has local wavelike properties.
Generally, wavelet transform transforms signals in the time (or
space) domain into the time (or space)frequency domain. This
means that, via wavelet transform, a signal is presented in the frequency domain while the information in the time (or space) domain is still retained. This is very useful for analyzing short
events or sudden changes contained in signals.
3.1. Continuous wavelet transform
The continuous wavelet transform is dened as follows [33]:

Wa; b

f twa;b dt

25

1

where wa;b t p1a w tb

, a is a real number called scale or dilation,
a
b is a real number called position, W(a, b) are wavelet coefcients at
scale a and position b, f(t) is input signal, wtb
is wavelet function
a
and w tb
is complex conjugate of wtb
.
a
a
In order to be classied as a wavelet a function must satisfy the
following mathematical criteria:
(1) A wavelet must have nite energy:

jwtj2 dt < 1

26

1

^ x is Fourier transform of w(t), i.e.

(2) If w

^ x
w

wteixt dt

1

then the following condition must be satised:

27

310

K.V. Nguyen / Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

1

^ xj2
jw

dx < 1

28

This implies that the wavelet has no zero frequency component:

^
w0
0,

wtejxt dt 0 when x 0

29

1

or in other words, the wavelet must have a zero mean:

wtdt 0

30

1

(3) An additional criterion is that, for complex wavelets, the

Fourier transform must both be real and vanish for negative
frequencies.
3.2. Wavelet spectrum
In order to monitor the IF of the vehiclebridge system during
vibration, the wavelet power spectrum S(a, b), which provides a
measure of the time series variation at each time and each scale
is used in this study. The wavelet power spectrum is dened simply as the square modulus of wavelet transform:

Sa; b jWa; bj2

31

Using the wavelet power spectrum to track the frequency of the

vibration with main energy in time, the variation of the frequency
during vibration or the IF will be determined.
4. Simulation results and discussions
A numerical example of the beam with two cracks at locations
of Lc1 = L/3 and Lc2 = 2L/3 is carried out. The crack depths of the
two cracks are the same. Parameters of the beam are: mass density
is 7855 kg/m3; modulus of elasticity E = 2.1  1011 N/m2; L = 50 m;
b = 0.5 m; h = 1 m; surface irregularity depth ratio rd = 0.05 and
surface irregularity length ratio rl = 10 are applied from Ref. [31]
 and l can be calculated from relationships:
so that d
48EId

d r m m m gL3 and r l Ll . Vehicle parameters are adopted from
d

Displecement of the vehicle (m)

k = 1.0  106 N/m;

[34]
as
follows:
m1 = m2 = 50000 N;
c = 5.0  102 N s/m; b1 = b2 = 3 m. For the crack detection problem,
low vehicle speeds can be applied efciently while high speeds are
not recommended [29], thus the vehicle speed v = 2 m/s is chosen
in this study. Therefore, it is noted that all the results and
conclusions in this study are valid when the velocity of the moving
vehicle is low. The displacementtime history at the middle of the
beam is obtained to investigate the inuence of the cracks. The
0.0E+00

4.1. Comparisons of the inuence of open and breathing cracks on

dynamic responses
In order to investigate the inuence of the breathing crack phenomenon on dynamic responses of the beam in comparison with
the open crack case, the displacement of the mid-beam were chosen so that the difference between the two cases of crack can be
detected clearly on the same graph. Figs. 25 show the dynamic
displacements of the beam without a crack, with a fully open crack,
and with a breathing crack calculated from three different levels of
the cracks. As can be seen from these gures, the amplitude of the
displacement of beam with breathing cracks is smaller than that
with open cracks and larger than the case of intact beam. This
means that it is more difcult when using the amplitude of dynamic displacement to detect the crack if it behaves as a breathing
crack. When the crack depth is large as can be seen in Fig. 4, the
effect of the breathing crack can roughly be considered as the effect
of a fully open crack with much smaller depth. This result is in
agreement with the work in [10]. However, this conclusion is not
correct when the crack depth is small which was not discussed
in [10]. As can be seen in Figs. 2 and 3 when the crack depth is
smaller than 30% of the beam height, the dynamic responses in
the case of a beam with a breathing crack is closer to the case of
a beam with an open crack than the case of an intact beam. It
means that when the crack is small, the behaviors of breathing
crack and open crack are quite similar.
The conclusion that can be drawn from this investigation is that
the amplitude of the response when the crack breaths is smaller
than the case of an open crack. This is a warning when using the
amplitude of the response to estimate the crack size if the breathing crack phenomenon is present, especially when the crack size is
large: the small amplitude of the response does not correspond to
the small size of crack.
4.2. Discrimination of open and breathing cracks using wavelet
spectrum
During vibration the stiffness of the beam with a breathing
crack varies leading to the variation in the frequency of the beam.
This variation of frequency cannot be detected by visually inspecting the vibration signal in the time domain or in the frequency
domain. This is because the breathing crack phenomenon is small
in the time domain and the time information in the frequency
0.0E+00

10

15

20

-5.0E-04

-1.0E-03

-1.5E-03

-2.0E-03

-2.5E-03

response signal is measured during the time when both legs of

the vehicle are running on the beam. Since the length of beam is
L = 50 m and the distance between the two legs is b1 + b2 = 6 m
then the length of the signal is T = [L  (b1 + b2)]/2 = 22 (s).

Time (s)

Fig. 3. Displacement of the beam, crack depth is 30% of the beam height.  :
Intact beam; : breathing crack;  : open crack.

Displecement of the vehicle (m)

Cg

10

15

20

-5.0E-04
-1.0E-03
-1.5E-03
-2.0E-03
-2.5E-03
-3.0E-03
-3.5E-03

Time (s)

Fig. 4. Displacement of the beam, crack depth is 50% of the beam height.  :
Intact beam; : breathing crack; :open crack.

311

K.V. Nguyen / Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

domain is lost. However, since the wavelet analysis transforms the

signal into the frequency domain while the time information is still
retained, the wavelet transform can be used to detect the variation
of frequency during vibration. For this purpose the wavelet spectrum as dened in (31) is applied. The square of the modulus of
the wavelet transform or wavelet spectrum can be interpreted as
an energy density distribution over the (a, b) time-scale plane
[35]. The energy of a signal is mainly concentrated on the timescale plane around the ridges of the wavelet spectrum. Since the
scale corresponds to the frequency of vibration, ridges of the
time-scale plane correspond to the main frequencies of the signal.
Thus, the IF of the signal can be observed by monitoring the ridges
of the time-scale plane. For the purpose of convenience, the timescale is converted to the timefrequency plane by relating the scale
to the pseudo-frequency as follows [36]:

Fa

Fc
aD

32

4.3. Crack depth estimation

To estimate crack depth, the variation range of IF has to be
investigated. The variation range the IF is dened as the difference
between the maximum and minimum values of the IF when the
vehicle moves from this end to the other end of the beam. Clearly,
when the crack is fully open, the variation range of IF is approximately zero, thus the variation range of IF cannot be used to assess
the crack depth in the case of open cracks. When there is a presence of breathing cracks, establishing a graph of variation range
of IF versus crack depth, a relationship between intensity factor
and crack depth is obtained as shown in Fig. 6. It can be seen that
the intensity factor increases quite slowly when the crack depth increase from 10% to 20% of the beam height. However, there is a signicant increase when the crack increases from 20% to 40% of the
beam height. Finally, the intensity factor increases very slowly
when the crack depth raises up from 40% to 50% of the beam
height. Because of this, Fig. 6 can be used to predict the crack depth

1.8

1.8

1.7

1.6

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

where a is a scale, D is the sampling period, Fc is the center frequency of a wavelet function in Hz, Fa is the pseudo-frequency corresponding to the scale a, in Hz.
In order to conrm the breathing crack phenomenon from the
timefrequency plane, the ridge in the case of a breathing cracked
beam is compared with the ridge in the case of an open cracked
beam. In this paper, the wavelet function Symlet is chosen as
the most suitable one for this study. As predicted above, for the
case of an open crack, the stiffness of the cracked beam is constant
so the IF is constant during vibration. But for the case of a breathing
crack, the stiffness of the beam varies with time leading to the
change in the IF during vibration. Therefore, ridges in the timefrequency plane can be used to detect the breathing crack phenomenon. For this purpose, the main ridge of the timefrequency plane
is extracted from the timefrequency plane as in Fig. 5 for three
crack levels ranging from 10% to 50% of the beam height.
As can be seen from Fig. 5, when the crack is open, the IFs are
approximately constant during vibration due to the constant stiffness. However, in case of a breathing crack, the IFs vary since the

stiffness of the beam varies during vibration. When the crack depth
is small the variation amplitude of the IF is small. The IF becomes
lower when the vehicle traverses the middle of beam and becomes
higher at the two ends. This can be explained by the fact that the
deection, and thus the curvature, increases when the vehicle traverses the middle of the beam due to the self weight of the vehicle.
From Eq. (21) the stiffness and, therefore, the IF will decrease when
the vehicle is in the middle of the beam and increase when the
vehicle is at the two ends. When the crack depth increases the uctuation amplitude of the IF increases. In this gure, the uctuation
of the IF is very clear and the uctuation amplitude is signicant.
This means that the variation of the IF in the timefrequency plane
can be used as an indicator of the breathing crack phenomenon. As
can be seen from this gure, the difference between the maximum
and minimum values of the IF increase when the crack depth increase. This difference, or the variation range of IF, therefore can
be considered as an intensity factor which relates the extent of
the crack to the ridge of the wavelet spectrum.

1.6
1.5
1.4
1.3

10

15

1.4
1.2
1
0.8

20

Time (s)

10

15

20

Time (s)

(a)

(b)

Frequency (Hz)

1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8

10

15

20

Time (s)

(c)
Fig. 5. Wavelet ridge: (a) crack depth is 10% of the beam height; (b) crack depth is 30%; (c) crack depth is 50%. Thin line: open crack; thick line: breathing crack.

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K.V. Nguyen / Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

1.0E-04

0.9

Wavelet coefficient

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

10

20

30

40

50

Crack depth (%)

0.0E+00
0

10

15

20

-5.0E-05
-1.0E-04

Time (s)

Fig. 8. Wavelet transform of displacement, crack depth is 30% of the beam height.
Dotted line: open crack; solid line: breathing crack.

Fig. 6. Intensity factor versus crack depth.

if the intensity factor is known with the specic conditions of the

vehiclebridge system presented in this study. Therefore, the crack
depth can be predicted using the variation range of IF when there is
a presence of breathing cracks.
4.4. Detection of crack location
When the vehicle passes by the cracks, there are distortions in
the dynamic response of the beam at the crack locations. However,
these local distortions are generally small and difcult to be detected visually as can be seen from Figs. 24. In previous works
[28,29], the wavelet transform with its special property was applied to detect these small distortions. However, the inuence of
the breathing crack phenomenon was not taken into account. In
this section, the inuence of the breathing crack phenomenon on
the detection of the crack location is investigated.
Figs. 79 present wavelet transforms of the displacement for
three differing levels of crack depth 10%, 30% and 50% of the beam
height. In these gures, the dotted lines and solid lines correspond
to the cases of open crack and breathing crack, respectively. As can
be seen in these gures, the wavelet transforms show four peaks at
t = 5.3 s, 8.3 s, 13.7 s, and 16.7 s. The peaks at t = 5.3 s and t = 8.3 s
correspond to the moments when the rst leg and the second leg of
the vehicle pass by the location of L/3 of the beam, while the peaks
at t = 13.7 s and t = 16.7 s correspond to that of 2L/3. As can be seen
from these gures, values of the peaks in wavelet transform increase when the crack depth increases. The positions of these
cracks can be easily calculated from the positions of the peaks
and the velocity of the vehicle. It is interesting that although the
amplitude of the displacement with the breathing cracks is smaller
than that with open cracks, peaks in their wavelet transform are
much larger. These differences of the peaks in wavelet transform
increase when the crack depth increases. These differences can
be explained as follows: when the legs of the vehicle pass by the
crack locations, the crack depths at these positions are maximized

3.0E-04
2.0E-04
1.0E-04
0.0E+00
0

10

15

20

-1.0E-04
-2.0E-04
-3.0E-04

Time (s)

Fig. 9. Wavelet transform of displacement, crack depth is 50% of the beam height.
Dotted line: open crack; solid line: breathing crack.

1.80E+00
1.70E+00
1.60E+00
1.50E+00
1.40E+00
1.30E+00
1.20E+00
1.10E+00
1.00E+00

10

15

20

Time (s)
Fig. 10. Wavelet ridge in the case of breathing cracks, crack depth is 20% of the
beam height. Solid line: 0% noise; dotted line: 1% noise.

-1.0E-05

so that the distortions in the dynamic response can be considered

the same as the case of a fully open crack. Moreover, with the presence of the breathing cracks, when the legs pass by the crack locations, the crack depths will change from small values to their
maximum values in a short time leading to additional local distortions in the response of the system. Therefore, the distortions
caused by breathing cracks are more signicant than by the open
cracks leading to more signicant peaks in the wavelet transform.
This implies that the wavelet method for crack detection is more
efcient with the presence of the breathing crack.

-2.0E-05

4.5. Inuence of the noise

2.0E-05

Wavelet coefficient

5.0E-05

-1.5E-04

60

Wavelet coefficient

Frequency (Hz)

IF range (Hz)

0.8

1.0E-05
0.0E+00
0

10

15

20

-3.0E-05
-4.0E-05

Time (s)

Fig. 7. Wavelet transform of displacement, crack depth is 10% of the beam height.
Dotted line: open crack; solid line: breathing crack.

In order to simulate the polluted measurements, white noise is

added to the calculated responses of the beam. The noisy response
is calculated as following formula:

dnoisy d Ep N rd

33

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Frequency (Hz)

K.V. Nguyen / Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

2.0E+00

4.00E-05

1.8E+00

3.00E-05

1.6E+00

2.00E-05

1.4E+00

1.00E-05
0.00E+00

1.2E+00

-1.00E-05

1.0E+00

10

15

20

-2.00E-05

8.0E-01
6.0E-01

-3.00E-05
0

10

15

20

Time (s)

-4.00E-05
Fig. 13. Wavelet transform of dynamic responses of the beam, crack depth is 20% of
the beam height, v = 2 m/s. Solid line: 0% noise; dotted line: 2% noise.

Fig. 11. Wavelet ridge in the case of breathing cracks, crack depth is 50% of the
beam height. Solid line: 0% noise; dotted line: 10% noise.

Frequency (Hz)

2.0E+00
1.8E+00
1.6E+00
1.4E+00
1.2E+00
1.0E+00

10

15

20

Time (s)
Fig. 12. Wavelet ridge in the case of open cracks. Solid line: 0% noise; dotted line:
10% noise.

Wavelet coefficient

3.0E-04

where d is the vertical displacement of the beam obtained from the

numerical simulation, Ep is the noise level and N is a standard normal distribution vector with zero mean value and unit standard
deviation. dnoisy is the noisy displacement, and r(d) is its standard
deviation.
Fig. 11 shows the graphs of IF versus time of the breathing
cracked beam with a crack depth of 50% of the beam height. As
can be seen from this gure, the IFs in the two cases, noisy and unnoisy, vary with time illustrating the phenomenon of the breathing
cracks. However, if this noise level inuences the IF in the case of
an open crack, i.e. the IF in the case of an open crack varies with
time as the IF in the case of a breathing crack does, then it means
that with this noise level the proposed method cannot be used to
detect the cracks based on the IF. Fortunately, this does not happen. Fig. 12 presents two IFs of the two cases, noisy and unnoisy,
versus time in case of an open crack with the crack depth of 50%
of the beam height. As can be seen from this gure, the two IFs
are close together and remain almost constant with time. This
means that a noise level up to 10% does not particularly inuence
the IFs in both cases of open and breathing cracks. Thus, the graph
of IF versus time can be used to detect the breathing crack phenomenon with a noise level up to 10%. Meanwhile, the method
can only be applied with a noise level of 5% in the case of open
cracks [28]. This means when there is a presence of breathing
cracks, the wavelet based method works more efciently in a noisy
environment when compared with the situation where open
cracks are present.
Fig. 14 shows the wavelet transform of the noisy and unnoisy
responses of the beam with the crack depth 50% of the beam
height. In this case, the presence of breathing cracks can be
detected with the noise level up to 10%. This implies that the

2.0E-04
1.0E-04
0.0E+00
-1.0E-04

10

15

20

-2.0E-04
-3.0E-04

Time (s)

Fig. 14. Wavelet transform of dynamic responses of the beam, crack depth is 50% of
the beam height, v = 2 m/s. Solid line: 0% noise; dotted line: 10% noise.

presented method is more efcient for crack detection where

breathing cracks are present.
It is noted that when the crack depth is small the noise level in
which the crack can be detected is small. As can be seen from
Figs. 10 and 13, a crack with a depth of 20% can only be detected
with the noise level of 1%.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, comparisons between the detections of open and
breathing cracks are made. Based on the comparisons, a wavelet
spectrum technique for detection of breathing cracks of a vehiclebridge system using the dynamic response of the bridge is presented. A warning for crack detection of the system with the
presence of a breathing crack is suggested.
Open and breathing cracks can be discriminated by monitoring
the IF in the wavelet spectrum. If the IF remains unchanged during
vibration, the cracks are fully open type. If the IF varies with time,
there is a presence of the breathing cracks. When there is a presence of the breathing cracks, the crack depth can be predicted by
using the relationship between the intensity factor and the crack
depth.
It is interesting that the peaks, corresponding to the crack positions, in the wavelet transform in the case of breathing cracks are
much larger than in the case of open cracks. In addition, these
peaks can be detected for the case of polluted measurements with
a noise level up to 10% when there is a presence of breathing
cracks, while it is only 5% if the cracks are fully open. This implies
that the wavelet-based method for crack detection of a bridge subjected to a moving vehicle is much more efcient with the presence of breathing cracks in comparison with the case of fully
open cracks.
The amplitude of the response of the beam with breathing
cracks is always smaller than that of open cracks. When the crack

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K.V. Nguyen / Engineering Structures 51 (2013) 306314

depth is small the difference in responses in the case of breathing

cracks and in the case of fully open cracks is small. However, when
the crack depth increases, this difference becomes much larger.
Therefore, careful inspection needs to be carried out when using
the amplitude of response to assess the crack size: the small measured amplitude of response does not always correspond to a small
crack size as reported for the case of open crack it is in fact larger if
there is the existence of a breathing crack.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by Vietnam National Foundation for
Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) 20112013.
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