Detecting Loosening of Bolted Connections in a Pipeline Using Changes in Natural Frequencies

Loosening of bolted connections in a structure can significantly reduce the load-bearing capacities of the structure. Detecting loosening of bolted connections at an early stage can avoid failure of the structure. Due to the complex geometry of a bolted connection and the material discontinuity between the clamped components, it is difficult to detect loosening of a bolted connection using conventional non-destructive test methods. A vibration-based method that uses changes in natural frequencies of a structure to detect the locations and extent of damage can be used to detect loosening of bolted connections, since the method focuses on detecting a stiffness reduction, which can result from loosening of the bolted connections. Experimental and numerical damage detection using the vibration-based method was conducted to detect the loosening of the bolted connections in a fullsize steel pipeline with bolted flanges. With the recent development of a predictive modeling technique for bolted connections in thin-walled structures, an accurate physics-based finite element model of the pipeline that is required by the vibration-based damage detection method is developed. A trust-region search strategy is employed to improve the damage detection method so that convergence of the damage detection algorithm can be ensured for under-determined systems, and the robustness of the algorithm can be enhanced when relatively large modeling error and measurement noise are present. The location and extent of the loosened bolted connections were successfully detected in experimental damage detection using changes in the natural frequencies of the first several modes; the exact location and extent of the loosened bolted connections can be detected in the numerical simulation where there are no modeling error and measurement noise.