Sparse damage localization using Lamb waves based on a finite element model

In this paper, we propose a damage localization method exploiting the spatial sparsity of the damages for an isotropic aluminium plate. The proposed method not only makes use of Lamb-wave responses measured by a wireless sensor network (WSN), but also takes advantage of the wave propagation model, which governs the physical characteristics of the Lamb-waves. The finite element method (FEM) is applied to approximate the wave propagation model. The resulted linear system model is combined with WSN measurements to formulate an inverse problem for damage localization. The ℓ₁ regularization is employed to solve the inverse problem and exploit the spatial sparsity of the damages. The simulation results illustrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.