Patent ID: 7620503

Claim:
A method for detecting material faults in a structure comprising: modeling said structure on a computer as a structure with no material faults; obtaining time series data from the computer modeled structure wherein said time series data represents vibrations in the computer modeled structure; performing a nonlinear analysis on the time series data obtained from the computer modeled structure to use as a baseline of values for said structure with no significant faults; deploying a plurality of sensors capable of detecting vibrations on the structure in order to detect vibrations in the structure, wherein each of said plurality of sensors generates a sensor output signal in the form of time series data; obtaining experimental time series data from said plurality of sensors; performing a preliminary nonlinear analysis on the experimental time series data from said plurality of sensors; determining whether said experimental time series data from said plurality of sensors is nonlinear based on said preliminary nonlinear analysis; determining whether said experimental time series data from said plurality of sensors is linear based on said preliminary nonlinear analysis; performing a linear analysis on said experimental time series data from said plurality of sensors based on the determination that the data was linear; performing a further nonlinear analysis on said experimental time series data from said plurality of sensors based on the determination that the data was nonlinear; and determining a damage level of the structure based on the variance between the experimental time series data and said baseline of values for said structure with no significant faults, wherein said damage level is related to a specific tolerance for said structure.