A Semi-Supervised Based K-Means Algorithm for Optimal Guided Waves Structural Health Monitoring: A Case Study

This paper concerns the health monitoring of pipelines and tubes. It proposes the k-means clustering algorithm as a simple tool to monitor the integrity of a structure (i.e., detecting defects and assessing their growth). The k-means algorithm is applied on data collected experimentally, by means of an ultrasonic guided waves technique, from healthy and damaged tubes. Damage was created by attaching magnets to a tube. The number of magnets was increased progressively to simulate an increase in the size of the defect and also, a change in its shape. To test the performance of the proposed method for damage detection, a statistical population was created for the healthy state and for each damage step. This was done by adding white Gaussian noise to each acquired signal. To optimize the number of clusters, many algorithms were run, and their results were compared. Then, a semi-supervised based method was proposed to determine an alarm threshold, triggered when a defect becomes critical.