Measuring structural dynamics with smartphones

Abstract

Dynamic analysis of structures plays an important role in designing civil engineering structures. Increasing population density and limited land availability have led to build taller, lighter and hence slender structures which attract high wind forces. Thus, there is an ever-growing demand for testing and monitoring dynamic responses of structures to understand performance under dynamic loading and estimate dynamic properties of structures. Since current techniques for dynamic testing are very costly, many avoid measuring dynamic responses until a problem arises. This paper presents a cost-effective method of dynamic measurements using readily available smartphones which are equipped with inbuilt accelerometers. A mobile application has been developed to acquire acceleration data from a smartphone and analyzed to estimate the dominant frequencies of a structure. Laboratory experiments has shown the potential of using smartphone as a reliable dynamic sensor.