Seismic damage detection of tall airport traffic control towers using wavelet analysis

In this study, the applicability of continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) for seismic damage detection of tall airport traffic control (ATC) towers was investigated. Nonlinear finite element (NFE) model of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) ATC tower with the height of 120m was created using discrete moment-curvature hinges. Three different strong ground motions excited the tower and three different damage scenarios were then obtained. Response accelerations at four strategically selected locations were analysed by CWT and DWT to detect the damage scenarios. It was found that CWT successfully detects seismic-induced damage even when the signals are polluted by noises. On the other hand, DWT is quite sensitive to noisy signals and successful damage detection by DWT depends on noise level and sampling interval. Moreover, it was observed that DWT is more sensitive to the change in the stiffness of the tower structural elements than CWT.