A new structural health monitoring system for real-time evaluation of building damage

The author has developed a new method for evaluating the seismic performance of existing structures from measured accelerations based on the capacity spectrum method. This involves comparing the performance curve, which is the equivalent nonlinear behavior of a simplified single-degree-of-freedom system, and the demand curve, which is the relationship between the response acceleration and displacement spectra. Two telecommunication towers in Japan were instrumented in 2016, and their responses during several earthquakes have been recorded. This paper discusses the evaluation of damage during the two earthquakes. Moreover, parameters such as the predominant period and the required performance are discussed. The proposed system evaluated both towers as being “elastic.” The damping ratios of the towers are very low, which caused the oscillations to continue for more than 5 min after the mainshock of each earthquake because of long-period components of the seismic motion